‘I had no hesitation. The card was out of my pocket in an instant’

One thing players can’t throw at referee Alain Rolland — what would you know, you never even played the game. The former scrum-half talks Warburton, crooked scrums and respect with his former international colleague.

We meet in a Dublin hotel just three days after his first visit to Wales since that sending off. His focus is on the Heineken Cup clash between Scarlets and Northampton, but everyone else is thinking Alain Rolland and Sam Warburton.

Did the Irish referee not feel, er...vulnerable?