Bristol Bears’ injured captain Steven Luatau and director of rugby Pat Lam criticised inconsistent refereeing as Bristol Bears were beaten 39-22 by Northampton Saints on Saturday.
Flanker Luatua and his boss Lam were both aggrieved that a high tackle from Saints fly-half Dan Biggar on Semi Radradra was only punished with a penalty by referee Karl Dickson and TMO David Rose.
Lam was convinced Radradra - who was later yellowed carded for a no arms tackle off the ball on Biggar - had been hit directly in the jaw by the Welshman’s shoulder.
To make matters worse, five minutes into Radradra’s sin-binning, Bristol number eight Fitz Harding joined him on the naughty step for another adjudged high tackle.
Bristol director of rugby Pat Lam said: “I am frustrated in a lot of ways. "They’ve got a dangerous attack, so we talked about controlling the ball and coming at them.
“We started off with a good try and there were a couple of opportunities that we missed for points, and then when we turned the ball over, which was one thing we didn’t want to do, they were very dangerous.
“We gave away back-to-back (tries) where there was a turnover at the line-out – unfortunately, some guys got their alignment in the system wrong, and they scored two tries that we shouldn’t have let in.
“We worked our way back to 24-17 and then, once again, we’re down to 13 men on yellow cards (for Radradra and Fitz Harding).
“We’ve been hit with a lot of yellow cards, and red cards, for these tackles, but the two that went today, the explanations were very similar to other teams that don’t get yellow cards, just penalty only.”
“Semi took a shoulder straight to the head but it was deemed just chest on chest, no red, no yellow.
“There are frustrations from our side, frustrations in some inconsistencies.”
"All you want is consistency. It is happening in every game, it just depends which ones are being picked up."
Luatua, who is recovering from a dislocated wrist, took to social media to express his unhappiness at the inconsistency between the high tackle decisions.
He wrote: “Yellow for that but no card for a shot to the face?”
Despite the unhappiness from the Bristol camp over the refereeing decisions, Saints director of rugby Chris Boyd perhaps put it best when he said post-match, “I don’t think the cards decided the game.”
Of course, if Biggar had seen red in the first half that probably won’t be the case.
As it was Bristol were largely outplayed at Franklin’s Gardens, with the hosts scoring five tries to the Bears’ four.
Saints winger Tom Collins scored a brace and was joined on the scoresheet by Rory Hutchinson, Lewis Ludlam and Tommy Freeman, with Bristol staying in the picture thanks to scores from Radradra, Callum Sheedy, Yann Thomas and Alapati Leiua to earn an attacking bonus point.
Bristol started brightly and broke through after seven minutes when Chris Vui’s pass put Harry Thacker into space and the hooker timed his ball inside to put Radradra in the clear, with Sheedy miscuing his conversion wide.
Biggar then put Northampton on the board with a simple penalty, but the fly-half was fortunate not to see a card for a dangerous tackle on Radradra minutes later.
Saints had seen two tries ruled out – through captain Lewis Ludlam and Tommy Freeman – by the time they managed to make one of their chances count after 25 minutes.
A slick first-phase move off a line-out led to Alex Mitchell putting Rory Hutchinson through a gap and the centre bided his time before putting Collins in the clear to score near the posts.
Three minutes later, the hosts were over again, as quick hands by Mitchell and Courtney Lawes led to Hutchinson going in under the posts with the visitors not even close to laying a hand on him.
The Bears soon hit back as Sheedy squeezed over in the corner, but Northampton had their third try when Ludlam made the most of some flimsy tackling to force his way over after collecting George Furbank’s offload.
A breathless first half still had one more score left in it, as Bristol loosehead prop Thomas plunged over, with Sheedy’s conversion taking the score to 24-17 at the break.
Biggar extended Northampton’s lead to 10 points with a penalty from in front of the posts before Freeman secured their bonus point by going in under the posts after neat play by Fraser Dingwall and Hutchinson.
To make matters worse for Bristol, Radradra was sent to the sin bin for a no-arms tackle on Biggar in the build-up and he was soon joined there by Harding, following his high hit on Dingwall.
The 13-man Bears were soon breached, as Collins was given an easy finish down the left by Freeman’s pass to score his second try.
Saints’ Paul Hill was then shown a yellow card for a deliberate knock-on and Bristol bagged a try bonus point of their own when Leiua went over in the corner for a consolation score.
Bristol Bears: 15. Charles Piutau, 14. Siva Naulago, 13. Semi Radradra, 12. Antoine Frisch, 11. Alapati Leiua, 10. Callum Sheedy, 9. Andy Uren; 1. Yann Thomas, 2. Harry Thacker, 3. John Afoa, 4. Dave Attwood, 5. Joe Joyce (c), 6. Chris Vui, 7. Jake Heenan, 8. Fitz Harding .
Replacements: 16. Jake Kerr, 17. Jake Woolmore, 18. Jake Armstrong, 19. Sam Jeffries, 20. Harry Randall, 21. Tiff Eden, 22. Piers O’Conor, 23. Luke Morahan.
Northampton Saints: 15 George Furbank, 14 Tommy Freeman, 13 Fraser Dingwall, 12 Rory Hutchinson, 11 Tom Collins, 10 Dan Biggar, 9 Alex Mitchell; 1 Alex Waller, 2 Sam Matavesi, 3 Paul Hill, 4 David Ribbans, 5 Api Ratuniyarawa, 6 Courtney Lawes, 7 Lewis Ludlam ©, 8 Juarno Augustus.
Replacements: 16 Mike Haywood, 17 Nick Auterac, 18 Conor Carey, 19 Alex Moon, 20 Alex Coles, 21 Tom James, 22 Matt Proctor, 23 George Hendy.
Referee: Karl Dickson (59th Premiership game).
Assistant Referees : Joe James & Wayne Falla. TMO: David Rose.
Citing Officer : Richard Nunn.
