Tandy left fuming by refereeing anomaly
STEVE Tandy hit out at referee Marius Mitrea after seeing his side’s 13-match unbeaten run brought to an end by Munster.
Dave Kilcoyne’s late effort sealed a dramatic comeback victory for the Irish raiders, but head coach Tandy was left frustrated at the inconsistency of official Mitrea.
The Italian failed to penalise Francis Saili for preventing an Ashley Beck try with a clear no-arms tackle and decided not to award the Ospreys what could have been a matchwinning penalty in the final play of the game after a high tackle on replacement Brendon Leonard.
While accepting his team had thrown away their chances of a 14th successive victory, Tandy said: “I’ve got a few issues with the officiating, there were some high shots I’d like to get some clarity on.
“I thought it was probably a penalty try in the second half, but I don’t even know if they are looking at the no-arms tackle.
“That’s an issue for us. It’s getting borderline ridiculous with the high tackles – you want consistency with that and we didn’t get it tonight.
“It’s bitterly disappointing and at 23-18 I thought we were going to see the game out. Lapses of concentration punished us. The best team has probably lost because we played some good stuff.
“But we couldn’t break the shackles of Munster and that’s the sign of a very good team.”
In an entertaining first half, Ospreys backs Hanno Dirksen and Kieron Fonotia exchanged quick-fire scores with Munster No.8 Jack O’Donoghue and Saili.
Sam Davies and opposition fly-half Tyler Bleyendaal had booted the rest of the points which meant the Ospreys went into the break 20-18 ahead.
Davies’ second-half penalty just before the hour mark looked to be pushing them towards the win but Munster refused to go quietly and incessant late pressure saw them finally find a way over the line.
Prop Kilcoyne dotted down for the game’s vital score to level the scores at 23-23 in the 78th minute, and Bleyendaal’s last-gasp conversion sealed an away win.
It left the majority of the Liberty Stadium crowd disappointed and put Munster back top of the table.
It was a game the Ospreys should really have won as they ultimately paid the price for overplaying in the 20 minutes before half time.
“At 17-3 up we should see the game out. I know Munster are a team who will never go away, but I would like to think we would make them work a bit harder to earn the victory,”
Tandy added.
“Fair play to Munster. When they are near your line you know they are going to be ruthless and they did that. It would be easy for us to totally blame the referee, but that would be an easy way for me to go.
“We will react positively. I don’t like to take the learnings from a defeat, but we can be better and we have to beat Glasgow at home next week now.”
“There’s a lot of belief in the side,” Bleyendaal said. “We got it taken to us by Ospreys in the first 20 and they were unbelievable. We had to stick to our structures and believe in what we do.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have been 17-3 down but that’s just an unbelievable win here.”