Australian-born Ireland international Mack Hansen could be in hot water after a sustained rant over the officiating of his club side Connacht following a high hit from All Black Jordie Barrett on Hansen’s Test teammate Bundee Aki on the weekend.
The incident happened as Barrett’s Leinster beat Connacht 20-12 on Sunday (AEDT).
Barrett escaped sanction for a tackle on Bundee Aki that Hansen felt was illegal, and the Test winger let his feelings be known in an astonishing post-match press conference, where he claimed his team was consistently on the wrong side of officials.
“Bundee gets a direct hit to the head [from Jordie Barrett], it’s quite obvious, no call,” Hansen said.
“It’s like we get that every time, so you can hear the frustration in my voice ‘cos it’s starting to get to the point where honestly, it’s bullshit and it’s starting to get really frustrating for us ‘cos people will say we are an inconsistent team, but Jesus Christ, when you are getting some of the calls we’re getting like, of course, you are going to be [frustrated].
“I’m not making excuses by any means but like, when you just get it week after week, I feel it’s got to be spoken about. Because it’s just getting to the point where it’s starting to really piss us off because we just feel we’re getting played out of games and we never ever get any calls.”
As well as the Barrett incident, Hansen pointed to a moment where his teammate Josh Ioane was forced off for a HIA but there was no sanction.
“Josh goes off with a direct hit to the head again and I was talking to the touchie and he goes, ‘oh, when you tackle you lead with the head’,” said Hansen.
“That doesn’t make any sense, that’s a penalty regardless. He’s actually said he’s hit him in the head with his head but because he was bent over it was fine or something like that. When he’s smacked him in the back of the head with his head and no call at all, not even a look back. We get that every time so … he’ll be in a tough situation if he said it. It just needs to be said. It’s really f–king starting to get to us as a team.”
Hansen could be fined or suspended for his criticism.
Hansen was sitting alongside coach Pete Wilkins, who had a wry smile during the Test star’s tirade over the four IRFU officials – referee Chris Busby, assistant referees Peter Martin and Stuart Gaffikin, and TMO Mark Patton.
“We all appreciate Mack’s honesty,” Wilkins said.
“It’s a tough one regarding referees’ performances. More often than not you are talking about TMO performances, who you never really get to meet in person.
“If you feed back to the referees your dissatisfaction, they either agree with you on some of your feedback, which doesn’t make you feel any better because then you know that you were right. Or they disagree with you which doesn’t make you feel any better because you can’t believe that you are not seeing eye to eye on it.
“All we can control is that we keep feeding it back and after that we see how we go. For us, particularly in defeat, we put our energy into what we can control and what we can do better and you just hope that everyone else involved in the game is doing similar.”
