Jonathan Davies launched an impassioned protest to referee Ben Blain after the Scarlets fell to a 32-15 defeat by the Lions in Sunday’s United Rugby Championship encounter in Johannesburg.
The west Walians had seen Vaea Fifita leave the field on 45 minutes with a bloodied nose after taking a swinging arm to the face from home back rower Darrien Landsberg. Surprisingly, no card was shown to the flanker.
But just before half-time Sam Costelow had been dispatched to the bin after a tackle across the neck area of scrum-half Sanele Nohamba which looked far more innocuous than the one Landsberg came up with.
A vexed Davies spoke with the referee as the game ended, saying: “A guy gets his nose across his face.
“My players are not safe when there are shots like that.
“Our 10 got sin-binned — right, a little hit on the side of the neck like that.
“Our guy’s nose across his face. The safety of my players is at risk.
“It's not fair. It's not fair.”
Earlier, after Fifita had been injured, Davies could be heard pointing out to the Scottish official that there had been contact to the head. “There can be contact to the head and not be foul play,” replied Blain. “Not all contact to the head is foul play.”
Fifita had been dipping when the contact took place, but Davies still looked within his rights to query the call.
Despite tries from Dan Davis, Tom Rogers and Sam Lousi, the Scarlets couldn’t fashion a victory at Ellis Park, losing 32-15 to a home side that scored four tries themselves.
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