Diamond sure Marler deserved red card
SALE boss Steve Diamond said England prop Joe Marler deserved his red card in the Sharks’ 30-29 victory over Harelquins on Saturday.
With Quins 22-17 ahead against Sale in the Aviva Premiership, the loosehead was deemed to have dropped his shoulder into the head of Sharks flanker TJ Ioane.
Marler duly received his marching orders and, despite Jamie Roberts’ effort giving the visitors a try bonus point, the Sharks came back to win via Rohan Janse van Rensburg’s second try and Faf de Klerk’s penalty.
Diamond thought Marler’s red card appeared a clear-cut decision.
“It looked it,” Diamond said. “With my eyes, the distance to the big screen isn’t fantastic for me but they don’t give reds unless they’re needed.
“That’s the part of the game we need to take out, where someone’s defenceless and you can knock them with your shoulder.”
Although the Sharks benefited from Marler’s absence, they did suffer a blow late in the encounter following a nasty-looking injury to first-choice stand-off AJ MacGinty.
Diamond added: “It looks like a serious knee injury and we’ll whip him off to hospital and have a look at it, but he fell in our hour of need, so to speak.
“He was defending really well, got us into a good position and I’m sorry to see him get injured, but we’ll look after him – he’ll come back.”