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'It doesn't look great' - Blackett defends TMO over missed eye-gouging incident

By PA
(Photo by PA)

Wasps head coach Lee Blackett defended TMO Graham Hughes for not intervening in the potential eye-gouging incident that overshadowed his side’s 20-18 win at Newcastle.

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Replays suggested Falcons winger Mateo Carreras made contact with the eye of Wasps’ Josh Bassett in the first half but play surprisingly resumed without any further inspection.

Carreras will instead almost certainly face retrospective action but Blackett says the footage was difficult to assess in quick time, although he also admitted from what he did see that “it doesn’t look great”.

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“The first time that I saw the incident was on the TV and I’ve not seen it again, it’s been flagged as a potential citing incident,” he said.

“It doesn’t look great though does it? I can see why the TMO might not have spotted it in 20 seconds but it might have taken five or six minutes to zoom in. Josh Bassett wasn’t the happiest at half-time.”

Wasps used the incident as motivation, clawing back a 12-point half-time deficit thanks to second-half tries from Brad Shields and Tom West to snap a four-match losing streak.

“I think where we are at the moment, we just needed to get that win,” Blackett added.

“There’s plenty of things that we could patch over. The only slight frustration is the amount of time we’ve spent in their 22 without taking advantage of it. We seem to be getting held up over the line so many times and it’s at crucial moments in games.

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“I’d like to see our conversion rates improve and be a little bit better when we are in the right areas of the pitch. We’ve played in the right areas and put the pressure on them.”

In contrast, Newcastle failed to get out of the starting blocks in the second half and gifted Wasps a route back into the game, with two yellow cards in quick succession.

Greg Peterson and Michael Young were sent to the sin-bin for cynical infringements, helping to wipe out the first-half lead they built through tries from Marco Fuser and George Wacokecoke.

Falcons director of rugby Dean Richards said: “I think the second half is charged with abandon and we gave a few too many penalties and ended up with 13 men.

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“It’s always difficult when you go down to 13 men to give them the opportunity to take the lead and we kind of shot ourselves in the foot.

“We were quite pleased with our first-half performance as we started to show glimpses of what we are about. It’s probably the best back five in a scrum we’ve had and it’s not a bad back five when you look at what we had with lots of internationals.

“I thought we were doing really well against a very competitive and combative side and I’m just disappointed that we didn’t get the rewards for the pressure in the scrum.”

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Bull Shark 1 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

Of the rugby I’ve born witness to in my lifetime - 1990 to date - I recognize great players throughout those years. But I have no doubt the game and the players are on average better today. So I doubt going back further is going to prove me wrong. The technical components of the game, set pieces, scrums, kicks, kicks at goal. And in general tactics employed are far more efficient, accurate and polished. Professional athletes that have invested countless hours on being accurate. There is one nation though that may be fairly competitive in any era - and that for me is the all blacks. And New Zealand players in general. NZ produces startling athletes who have fantastic ball skills. And then the odd phenomenon like Brooke. Lomu. Mcaw. Carter. Better than comparing players and teams across eras - I’ve often had this thought - that it would be very interesting to have a version of the game that is closer to its original form. What would the game look like today if the rules were rolled back. Not rules that promote safety obviously - but rules like: - a try being worth 1 point and conversion 2 points. Hence the term “try”. Earning a try at goals. Would we see more attacking play? - no lifting in the lineouts. - rucks and break down laws in general. They looked like wrestling matches in bygone eras. I wonder what a game applying 1995 rules would look like with modern players. It may be a daft exercise, but it would make for an interesting spectacle celebrating “purer” forms of the game that roll back the rules dramatically by a few versions. Would we come to learn that some of the rules/combinations of the rules we see today have actually made the game less attractive? I’d love to see an exhibition match like that.

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