A fuming Mack Hansen vented his frustration on how Connacht are being refereed in general and questioned why there were no sanctions against Leinster in Saturday night’s URC game at the Aviva Stadium.
The Irish winger claimed Connacht are consistently on the wrong side of official’s decisions in matches and that it has been the case for years. He specifically mentioned collisions during Saturday evening’s match involving team-mate Josh Ioane, who went off with a HIA, and his Ireland team-mate Bundee Aki.
“Can I say something real quick about the situation,” said a frustrated Hansen, interrupting his coach Pete Wilkins after the 20-12 defeat to Leinster. “Like, I feel like we get this every week. We never get any calls, ever. I’ve been feeling this for years now. Like, you can’t possibly tell me yourselves sitting there, like checking the Gus McCarthy one, how much? How much did they check that, 10, 11 times?
“Bundee gets a direct hit to the head [from Jordie Barrett], it’s quite obvious, no call. It’s like we get that every time, so you can hear the frustration in my voice ‘cos it’s starting to get to the point where honestly, it’s bullshit and it’s starting to get really frustrating for us ‘cos people will say we are an inconsistent team, but Jesus Christ, when you are getting some of the calls we’re getting like, of course, you are going to be [frustrated].”
Hansen added that he was not trying to make excuses for Connacht’s performance but that he has become perplexed and annoyed at what he believed is a real issue for the team.
“I’m not making excuses by any means but like, when you just get it week after week, I feel it’s got to be spoken about. Because it’s just getting to the point where it’s starting to really piss us off because we just feel we’re getting played out of games and we never ever get any calls,” he said.
“He didn’t even look back at it and then Josh goes off with a direct hit to the head again and I was talking to the touchie and he goes, ‘oh, when you tackle you lead with the head’.
“That doesn’t make any sense, that’s a penalty regardless. He’s actually said he’s hit him in the head with his head but because he was bent over it was fine or something like that. When he’s smacked him in the back of the head with his head and no call at all, not even a look back. We get that every time so ... he’ll be in a tough situation if he said it. It just needs to be said. It’s really f***ing starting to get to us as a team.”
Connacht coach Wilkins was also asked about the refereeing but was more diplomatic. All the officials were from the IRFU, referee Chris Busby, assistant referees Peter Martin and Stuart Gaffikin and the TMO was Mark Patton.
“We all appreciate Mack’s honesty,” he said. “It’s a tough one regarding referees’ performances. More often than not you are talking about TMO performances, who you never really get to meet in person.
“If you feed back to the referees your dissatisfaction, they either agree with you on some of your feedback, which doesn’t make you feel any better because then you know that you were right. Or they disagree with you which doesn’t make you feel any better because you can’t believe that you are not seeing eye to eye on it.
“All we can control is that we keep feeding it back and after that we see how we go. For us, particularly in defeat, we put our energy into what we can control and what we can do better and you just hope that everyone else involved in the game is doing similar.”
Connacht face Ulster next weekend in Galway’s Dexcom Stadium in the seasonal interprovincial series of URC matches.
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