CMK was being told in his earpiece as the missed conversion was sailing by, that Sale had committed two no arms tackles in the previous period of play.
What’s the correct protocol there?
What should a referee do with that knowledge?
It was also pretty annoying that as we took the quick tap at the end, one of the Sale players was already the best part of 2m off of the line and then rather than checking himself and not getting involved he flew straight in for the tackle, CMK held an arm out for the offside but surely that's a clear pen there and then. Definitely clutching at straws a bit, but at 76 mins there's the possibility for a second try to get close to levelling the game. At nearly 79, there isn't.
It's been said already, but lots of handling errors thanks to sloppy ball, some clever frustration tactics from Sale on top of their outright physicality and CMK because of it given them the benefit of the doubt when it came to the more marginal calls.
I'm not sure it was our tactics, or selection that were the issue. Just the execution, Umaga in particular had a high number of handling errors. He's young though, not every game will be sublime for him and I hope he doesn't come out of this with a real low and instead learns from it.
Dimes nailed it in his interview; he'd prepped them well. They chose not to play rugby in the first half, trusted their defence and were hungry.
It's a result that really stings (boom boom).
Always a Wasp