VIDEO: Toulon stars restrain teammate after confronting ref

SPOTLIGHT: Ma’a Nonu and Sergio Parisse were forced to restrain a Toulon teammate after his remonstrations with the referee saw him place his hands on the official.

Toulon were playing away to Bayonne in the Top 14 when the incident occurred. In the 72 second minute replacement centre Theo Dachary demanded that referee Pierre Baptiste Nuchy refer to the TMO after he was unhappy with a decision, with the result still in the balance at 35–29 with eight minutes left to go.

After the irate Dachary advanced on the referee, Italian legend Parisse grabbed the centre and pushed him away after put his hands on the referee’s shoulder, letting out a roar in the process.

Dachary wasn’t done though and had to be grabbed by All Blacks legend Ma’a Nonu, who didn’t look too impressed with his teammate’s behaviour.

Poke @EspritdelaRegle 😉(Ca sert à ca l’expérience de Parisse et Nonu) pic.twitter.com/9ZF93dK6OC

— David Reboursiere (@DavidReboursie1) November 22, 2020

It was a fiery match, with three yellow cards doled out in the final 10 minutes. Toulon went on to lose the game.

But it wasn’t done there, with Toulon head coach Patrice Collazo confronting the referee, after he felt Toulon had been too heavily penalised. He then took a pop at his own players after the game: “Even if in the second half, there was a collective reaction, it wasn’t is not a character issue. I think it’s mostly an investment problem… When you don’t want to tackle, you tackle high. As in the first half, we pretended to tackle, we expose ourselves.”

It is yet to be seen if Dachary will face any further punishment for his behaviour from the LNR, although both the actions of Parisse and Nonu likely stopped the incident from escalating further. The irony, of course, is that occasionally hot-headed Nonu has had more runs in with referees than most, with a rich history of indiscretions marking out his decorated career.

Ian Cameron, @RugbyPass