Munster had a nightmare of a day in Toulon on the weekend as they not only took a 32-16 hiding, but had to deal with a controversial call as kingpin flyhalf Ronan O’Gara was yellow carded for his part in a tussle with Pierre Mignoni.
Mignoni, who will be retiring at the end of this season, was fantastic on the day and the fighting spirit he showed typified the Toulon performance, knocking the much fancied Irish side out of the competition for the first time in many years.
The decision made following this incident wasn’t as clear cut as the Munster loss though, as referee Dave Pearson took a hard-line approach to assistant ref Sean Davies’ recommendation.
While O’Gara and fiery scrumhalf Mignoni were no doubt the instigators of the scuffle, if anything it was former Leinster man Felipe Contepomi and Munster captain Denis Leamy who accelerated matters. It led to mass chaos, and O’Gara was the only one to be picked up.
The score was 29-9 at the time of the carding, and by the time O’Gara came back the score hadn’t changed, so it didn’t have a massive bearing on the outcome of the game. However it looked like the wrong call, and I know some of you wanted to see it again.
If you were referee on the day, what would your call have been?
Sign In