Said he hadn't seen it, was shown a video and laughed it off.
I think that’s a bit unfair on Deano. He didn’t laugh it off, he just said I haven’t seen it and I can’t really see it on your screen and chose to dodge the questions.
It was pretty lazy journalism - I’m not sure what answer they were expecting especially without having likely heard Carrera’s version of events.
The outcome is a big story, as gouging is unacceptable. But I think the bigger story is that with an official having been told by a player that they’ve had contact made with the eye and have sought treatment for it, nobody bothered to look or double check - i.e. When a player, politely and calmly, explains to an Official that something well outside the Laws of game has potentially happened they chose to do nothing.
If I was Josh, or Launchbury I would absolutely of had a word with the Ref to explain that whilst it’s his prerogative whether to look at the incident or not, especially one as potentially serious, if the Officials opt not to afford the players a degree of protection from incidents of potential serious foul-play like this that if it happens again that he’ll instruct the team to take matters into their own hands as it’s not acceptable not to have that degree of protection and I’d have done so whilst asking Jimmy to wait to take the conversion until the conversation could be had.
Whilst this risks an increased number of players appealing to the Ref, this isn’t over a disputed knock-on or something trivial.
If anything, Josh was too calm and good for him for not losing his rag and risking a Yellow, or a Red for retaliation.
We’ve spoken before about these retrospective Reds - It continues to be daft - irrespective of the result - that the team whom the offence is committed against gets no advantage and the team committing the offence doesn’t get penalised appropriately in the game in which the offence happens.
Perhaps something like a point deducted from the offending team in the event of a retrospective Red card not given during a game or a point awarded to the team who had an offence committed against them.