Unhappy with referees
There is nothing new about losing teams’ expressing unhappiness with referees. The French have been having a go of late – first about English referees, now about their own.
After the last two rounds of the Heineken Cup Perpignan’s and Stade Français, especially, complained of the English referees. This time they were winning sides and their opponents complained.
Stade Français beat Bayonne 38-8, scoring four tries to one. Each side had a player in the sin bin – Rob Linde of Bayonne and Mark Gasnier of Stade Français.
Perpignan beat Castres 16-9. Each side kicked three penalty goals but Jérôme Porical scored a try, the only one of the match. There was just one sin-binning – of Leiataua Tomiki of Castres.
Thierry Mentières of Bayonne complained that the referees favoured the “bid sides”. He said that, as when they had lost the previous round to Toulouse, the referee had come after them and dished out “incomprehensible” yellow cards. He found the refereeing one-sided. “The one team does not have the right to touch the ball on the ground or the right to push in the scrum or the right to jump in the line-out. Our players are under attack – like Rémy Martin who has been virtually knocked out in his last three matches because he was kneed.”
Toulouse beat Bayonne 32-11, three tries to one. The only player sin-binned was Rob Linde of Bayonne.
Alain Gaillard of Castres said that his side had been assassinated by the referee – as, he claimed, had happened week after week.
Castres are at present second last on the log, having won three, drawn one and lost nine. In their six matches prior to the Perpignan match they had had two players sanctioned – Carl Hoeft red-carded and Fabio Staibano yellow-carded.
