ANTHONY FOLEY SAYS Romain Poite’s decision to penalise James Cronin for an off-the-ball push during the first half of Munster’s 31-19 defeat to Leicester was “nothing short of a disgrace.”
The French referee consulted his television match official Gilles Cogne with around 12 minutes of the first half remaining, first looking at possible obstruction by Mike Fitzgerald on Andrew Conway.
Instead of penalising the Leicester second row, Poite instead went back to another incident in which James Cronin had pushed Tom Youngs. Leicester were awarded a penalty, which they kicked to touched, then manufacturing a try for Niki Goneva.
A clearly angry Foley expressed his deep unhappiness with Poite’s decision following Munster’s defeat.
“To penalise James Cronin for being pushed by Dan Cole into another player, who then shoulder charged Andrew Conway and we end up with the penalty that ultimately ended up the maul to the try.
“You’re there going… it’s nothing short of a disgrace. If you’re going to look at a picture, look at the whole picture. I am just baffled by it, I said it to him (Poite) at half time. I said, ‘it’s a massive decision.’
“He just needs to be accountable for it. It was a massive turning point in the game, I’ll go with that, but then we overthrow a lineout, we don’t react quick enough and they score. It was 18-6 at half time, it’s a mountain to climb.
“The boy came out and scored straight away, good opportunistic, I think it was Jamesie Cronin may have got it. We missed a few kicks at goal, we didn’t get close enough at times and then we gave up another soft try.
“At half time, Ian Costello (Munster’s defence coach) had to stand up in the changing room and say, ‘Look, I don’t really have a whole pile to talk about in defence, from their attack.’
“At the end of the game, he’d probably be saying the same thing, that there wasn’t a whole pile to talk about. But they took their opportunities, scored three tries and we end up getting nothing out of the game at home. It’s a hard one to figure out at the moment.”
Asked about Ian Keatley’s three missed kicks at goal, one of which was from in front of the posts in the first half, Foley was succinct.
“I think you are (disappointed). You have an international out-half and you want to be getting particularly in front of the posts. You definitely want to be getting them.”
