Blackett has sympathy for ref over ‘eye gouge’ incident
BUT WASPS COACH ADMITS ‘IT DOESN’T LOOK GREAT’
WASPS head coach Lee Blackett shared his thoughts on what has been claimed to be an eye-gouging incident during Friday night’s match against Newcastle Falcons.
Having played his part in successfully holding up Josh Bassett over the goalline in the first half, Falcons winger Mateo Carreras appeared to make contact with the Wasps winger’s eyes.
The incident was immediately flagged to the officials but play resumed, with television match commentators saying it was ‘marked as a potential citing incident.’
Wasps managed to keep their cool and overturn a half-time 12-point deficit to defeat Newcastle 20-18 at Kingston Park.
Speaking after the match, Blackett said: “I’ve not even been back in the dressing room so the first time I saw it was on TV. But it didn’t look great, did it?”
Wasps supporters vented their frustrations on social media over the moment not being dealt with during the match.
Blackett had some sympathy with the officials, he said: “I believe it was looked at in the game, I don’t have the ref mic on but I thought it was looked at, and I didn’t see anything clear.
“Now we’re talking about trying to see something in 20 seconds and the pictures I saw, you’re trying to zoom in and magnify everything and certain angles.
“Unless it’s clear and obvious... I can see why the TMO might not pick it up originally and then if you’ve got five, six minutes later you might pick it up.”
Blackett added: “Josh was pretty frustrated at the time and pretty frustrated at half-time. But it is what it is, it didn’t look great did it?”
Newcastle boss Dean Richards was shown the Carreras/bassett moment pitchside by BT Sport. He later said: “I haven’t seen it, I’ll have a look at it later. I know a few people are making a big deal about it but I haven’t seen it so I’ll have a look later.”
If Carreras is cited for intentional contact with the eyes, a mid-range entry point for a suspension is 18 weeks, the lower end is 12 weeks and a top end is 24 weeks and over. n Meanwhile, Blackett has explained why a number of players did not feature in the win over Falcons.
Tries from Brad Shields and Tom West saw the black and golds over
come a 12-point half-time deficit to win 20-18.
Among the players who featured in the previous week’s defeat to Bristol Bears but didn’t make the trip to the northeast were Tom Cruse and Jacob Umaga.
Hooker Cruse pulled his calf in training on Tuesday and is out for ‘about six weeks.’
On fly-half Umaga’s absence, Blackett explained: “Jacob’s is just close contact [Covid-19 related], living arrangments, not with one of our people, he’s a close contact with someone and he’ll be available next week.”
Tighthead prop Kieran Brookes
was picked to start after serving his ban for a red card against Leicester Tigers but was withdrawn from the squad to face one of his former clubs.
“It’s his hand,” said Blackett. “He’s not broken it, but we feel like it may be ligaments or something like that. So he has had an x-ray but we didn’t feel a break, it may be something else.”
Shields’ withdrawal with seven minutes to go to be replaced by lock Theo Vukasinovic who packed down on the flank was due to cramp.
Joe Launchbury and Alfie Barbeary both made their returns from injury lay-offs and were influential figures in Wasps’ victory at Kingston Park.