'Very, very unusual' - Stuart Lancaster baffled by yellow cards that cost Connacht

English referee Christophe Ridley dished out yellow cards to hooker Dylan Tierney-Martin and flanker Shamus Hurley-Langton early on.

NOT SO MELLOW YELLOWS: Connacht's Head Coach Stuart Lancaster. Pic: ©INPHO/James Crombie.

Stuart Lancaster is far too diplomatic and has been around too long to criticise referees, but he admitted after Connacht’s 45-22 loss in Montpellier that he found it ‘very, very unusual’ to have two players binned in the opening six minutes.

English referee Christophe Ridley dished out a yellow card to hooker Dylan Tierney-Martin in Montpellier’s first attack of the game after five minutes and when they again went for a lineout in the right corner he sent flanker Shamus Hurley-Langton to the bin and awarded a penalty try.

“Very, very unusual,” said Lancaster when asked for his take on it.

” I haven't spoken to Christophe yet. They've also got good maul, I think we tried to defend them all legally. He obviously interpreted it differently, twice.

“And so, then you're down to 13 after six minutes, and it's hard then, isn't it? We've got Bundee Aki throwing in the lineout, and you're just trying to navigate that period, which I thought we did really well.” 

Connacht managed to limit the damage to 14-3 while down to 13 men, and Tierney-Martin cut the gap with a try on his return but then Shayne Bolton was binned after 27 minutes for a late tackle and Montpellier got their try third after going to the corner with the penalty.

“I thought the third yellow card, Shayne Bolton, was a big moment as well,” added Lancaster.

“And obviously, that puts us under more pressure. Obviously, they took us seriously from the last round when we played against them. They're a high-quality team. They deserve to win in the end, for sure.

“Obviously defending with 15 makes a huge difference. I mean, it's a 70-metre-wide pitch. It's a huge pitch to defend 13 on. And so, yeah, a lot of ifs, buts and maybes. The reality was it did happen, and we dealt with it as best we could.”

The sense of lost opportunity increased on Saturday night when it emerged that Dragons had defeated Zebre — Connacht would have been at home to the Newport side, second from the bottom in the URC with just two wins all season, in the semi-finals had they got past Montpellier.

Connacht flew home on a charter flight from Montpellier to Shannon on Saturday night and will depart Galway for South Africa on Monday to take on the Stormers next weekend and the Lions a week later as they now focus on trying to secure a top half finish in the URC.

“We’ll meet on Monday morning in Galway, and we'll review this game quickly, and we'll turn the page to the Stormers,” added Lancaster.