Montpellier coach calls for consistency on high tackles

Leinster will return to the familiar environment of a Champions Cup quarter-final – the home tie can be secured with victory in Castres next weekend – but the Frans Steyn forearm into the neck and jaw of Johnny Sexton consumed post match interviews with Leo Cullen and his Montpellier counterpart Jake White.

Would the Steyn red card, after 26 minutes with Leinster already leading 14-3, have been just a penalty, and not even a sin-binning, during the Jaco Peyper show between Ireland and New Zealand last November?

“Quite possibly,” said Cullen. “I thought he might be gone because he was late as well as high, plus it is off a line break. My gut instinct was this guy is going to get a red card.

“But, if you asked me a month ago would I have said the same thing...It’s a tough one because, looking at it]the other way around it has such a big impact on the game.”

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Sexton departed the field for only just four minutes, which Cullen stated was enough time to “fly through” the head injury assessment (HIA).

“They were more worried about his neck,” Cullen explained. “He is good to go.”

White wasn’t so keen to comment on the decision by referee JP Doyle to show a straight red card after viewing footage of late tackle.

“I’m not going to comment on that,” said White. “It is not for me to speak about referees. There was a brief at the beginning of the week about zero tolerance on those sort of incidences.

“We have had a red card in three of our European games so...You lose your 10, with Francois he is not just a 10 he runs our entire attack so it would have been difficult against Leinster with 15 men, with 14 it was almost impossible.

"He perceived it to be zero tolerance. He had Wayne Barnes on touch, one of the best referees in the world, and he agreed with him. One has to get on with it."

Would it have been a red card in the Top 14?

“I would like to believe it will be because if those sanctions have come loud and clear, about zero tolerance in those incidences, it needs to be consistent.

“I have seen worse than that and play on and I have been coaching rugby for a long time. As long as they don’t blow it for two weeks and then go back to the old ways, they need to referee like that by all referees against all teams.

“That would be good for the game.”

White was asked if Montpellier had any issue with Doyle, who is registered as an English referee but is from Dublin, taking charge of such a crucial game against Leinster.

“They [European Rugby] got to make decisions. I’m not going to talk about appointments and referees and styles and mistakes.

“It’s very simple we were beaten by better team. We were humbled tonight.”

And where does the former Springbok coach see the balance of power between the multicultural French clubs and the competitive return of the Irish provinces?

“Both have their merits. You got three foreign coaches coaching your four provinces, you got a foreign coach coaching your national team, you got a foreign coach as the head of rugby in Ireland (David Nucifora) and an English guy coaching [the Leinster]defence. If you look at it like that it bodes well for your rugby.

“France is a different dynamic we get Georgians and South Africans playing together.

“In the long run it is about putting a team together that can develop.”