Heineken Cup: Noves rails against the ref after Cardiff defeat gives Toulouse the Blues

11 April 2009

Cardiff Blues 9 (6) Stade Toulousain 6 (3)

Veteran Stade Toulousain coach Guy Noves railed against English referee Chris White after his side were dumped out of the Heineken Cup by Cardiff Blues.

Noves claimed White applied double standards throughout the match, disproportionally penalised the French side with a string of contentious decisions.

"As soon as we were in our half, we were immediately punished by the immensity of a penalty," he complained afterwards.

"Obviously we don't know the rules or the rules are applied differently according to whether the shirts are black or blue," he added sarcastically.

And Noves, clearly still riled by the defeat, went on: "We fell to a good team, but I feel that they won't be European champions because they are not a great team."

Experienced lock Fabien Pelous was also seething at the perceived mistreatment he felt White handed out to the three-times champions.

"Once again we saw the influence the crowd has on the referee on two or three occasions... and finally they had a lot of influence on the final result," said the 35-year-old.

But Pelous was also honest enough to admit that Toulouse had also been architects of their own downfall. "It's easy to criticise contentious decisions, but our lack of finishing was also to blame," he said.

"I am disappointed above all, because we had the chances to win this game four or five times. There were too many errors in the first half, especially in the first 10 or 15 minutes when we were dominating in terms of territory.

"The Cardiff defence made it very hard for us to break the gain-line. It was very difficult to play our rugby," he added.

Heineken Cup - Results and Tables

Noves and Pelous certainly had grounds for complaint when Martyn Williams deliberately killed the ball in front of his own posts in the second half - ref White giving a penalty but no yellow card - but it's also true that Toulouse squandered several clear openings.

The ever-impressive Maxime Medard was twice denied try-scoring runs in the second-half - first when Yannick Jauzion's forward pass was rightfully penalised and secondly when the latter's erratic pass proved too wayward to gather.

Toulouse were also denied a try before the break when the television official claimed Thierry Dusautoir had knocked on after Byron Kelleher was stopped agonisingly short. It proved a crucial decision with Cardiff hanging on to lead 6-3 at the interval after Ben Blair slotted two penalties to Frederic Michalak's one.

Blair added a third after the restart, with Michalak's replacement David Skrela replying in kind for Toulouse - after the Williams incident - but that was it as far as the scoring went.

Both sides threatened in a tense closing as the game became stretched, but Toulouse will be desperately disappointed they couldn't land the killer blow.

It means there will be no French side in the semi-finals for only the second time in the competition's history.

© Copyright FrenchRugbyClub.com. All rights reserved.