Anthony Foley: Ref watchdog supported Munster complaints ‘100%’
The Munster head coach acknowledges that his team face an uphill battle to qualify for the knockout stages of the Guinness Pro12 and that they are far from assured of a place in next year’s European Champions Cup.
However, he is far from despondent about the situation and emphatically dismisses an increasingly widely held view that the one-time kings of European rugby are now in a state of crisis.
Indeed, after yesterday’s squad session at UL, he focused his attentions on an increasing level of frustration with refereeing standards in the Pro12.
He has made his views known about Welsh officials Leighton Hodges and Ben Whitehouse to the competition’s refereeing commissioner Ed Morrison and received a positive response.
“We did get answers back on Leighton Hodges after the Ospreys game,” said Foley. “Yes, they were in our favour 100%. Every point we made, Ed Morrison agreed with. I don’t know if there are implications for him [Hodges]. That’s something you’d have to ask somebody else. The answers we get back are no good to us because the game is over and the points are gone elsewhere.
“I think it was 15 issues we raised after the Ospreys game although there were three from another.
“I want a bit of consistency about what’s happening to us around certain areas and they agree. It is frustrating and there were things from the weekend as well that we question. It’s hard when you watch a game from some of the angles. I do appreciate that the refs have one go at it but you’d like some of the 70/30s. We’ll just see what’s going to be done and how it will be handled.”
Doubtless, some will regard Foley’s words as sour grapes but he is clearly willing and strong enough to take that on the chin and get on with the job.
“If we were playing poorly, I would say yes, we are in crisis but that is not the case,” he insisted.
“We’re creating a lot of opportunities. You go back to the Ospreys game when we didn’t get a penalty shot at goal and against Glasgow when we had one. In terms of where we are to get points at the moment, it has to be through tries.
“We’ve scored three in our last two games so a side that can do that and not avail of points from elsewhere is going okay but not getting the results they require.
“We’re fully aware of the situation regarding the top four in the Pro12 and qualifying for Europe and we need to deal with that one game at a time. You can look at it through blocks and make predictions but we’re going to a team this week, Treviso, that we’ve played three times so far this season. They’ve been very tough physical contests. There were big turning points in all three and we were fortunate that they all fell our way.”
In response to suggestions that Munster are set to appoint a director of rugby, Foley said: “That’s probably a question you need to bring up with Garrett (Fitzgerald, the club’s chief executive).”
As for his own contract regarding a 12-month extension, he replied: “Nothing has been confirmed there as yet. I sat down with Garrett this morning and when there’s something to be announced, it will be announced.”
Foley gave an update on some of his injury worries ahead of the Treviso clash.
“Frankie Saili trained fully today, did full contact and hopefully we’ll get him through to Sunday.
“Stephen Archer did some more scrums today, it’s good to have him back and we’ll wait and see how he came through before deciding about Treviso.”
