Bath and Leinster players’ violent plot to avoid more refereeing drama
After the controversy surrounding some refereeing decisions that came out of Harlequins’ victory over Castres on Friday night in the Heineken Champions Cup, Bath and Leinster players were clearly hellbent on not experiencing the same today in their encounter at the Rec, and therefore devised a violent plan.
Leinster centre Garry Ringrose and Bath lock Charlie Ewels joined forces in trying to take out referee Andrea Piardi, and to be fair to them, they did a pretty good job. Ringrose carried the ball directly into the referee, who soon found himself sandwiched between the two in the first half at the Rec. Also to be fair to Piardi, he took a hit from two Test players like an absolute champ.
From Bath’s perspective, trying to injure the referee and his replacement and even the replacement’s replacement was probably the best bet in trying to get a result. An abandoned game due to a lack of referees was all Bath had to hope for going into the game after the Irish outfit posted a humungous 89-7 win over Montpellier in round three while Bath have only enjoyed one win this season in all competitions.
Take a look:
"HIA for the referee!" 🤕😂
Decent dip into the tackle, Andrea Piardi! 😅
The Italian is made of tough stuff 💪#HeinekenChampionsCup pic.twitter.com/C5nHQngXrj
— Rugby on TNT Sports (@rugbyontnt) January 22, 2022
Bath Starting XV
15. Ruaridh McConnochie
14. Will Butt
13. Max Clark
12. Cameron Redpath
11. Gabriel Hamer-Webb
10. Orlando Bailey
9. Ben Spencer
1. Arthur Cordwell
2. Jacques du Toit
3. Will Stuart
4. Will Spencer
5. Charlie Ewels (c)
6. Tom Ellis
7. Sam Underhill
8. Josh Bayliss
Replacements
16. Tom Doughty
17. Will Vaughan
18. Johannes Jonker
19. Josh McNally
20. Mike Williams
21. Joe Simpson
22. Max Ojomoh
23. Darren Atkins
Leinster Rugby Starting XV (Leinster caps in brackets)
15. Hugo Keenan (37)
14. Jordan Larmour (68)
13. Garry Ringrose (93)
12. Robbie Henshaw (59)
11. Jimmy O’Brien (40)
10. Johnny Sexton CAPTAIN (177)
9. Luke McGrath (159)
1. Andrew Porter (84)
2. Rónan Kelleher (32)
3. Michael Ala’alatoa (8)
4. Ross Molony (124)
5. Josh Murphy (51)
6. Caelan Doris (46)
7. Josh van der Flier (105)
8. Jack Conan (109)
Replacements
16. Dan Sheehan (20)
17. Cian Healy (240)
18. Vakh Abdaladze (15)
19. Ryan Baird (35)
20. Max Deegan (73)
21. Jamison Gibson-Park (108)
22. Ross Byrne (113)
23. Ciarán Frawley (44)
