It was a poetic ending to the Champions Cup pool stages last weekend when all three Irish provinces faced off against English giants, perfectly teeing up Ireland's opening Six Nations clash vs England in two weeks time.
No game was as telling as Leinster v Bath, where the URC leaders were pitted against the Gallagher Premiership leaders in the Aviva Stadium.
While for the best part of an hour, nothing separated the two sides barring Leinster's slight edge in attacking possession, Beno Obano's second yellow card for repeat infringements in the scrum just before the sixty-minute mark deprived the game of the fitting ending it deserved.
Obano had been shown a yellow card in the first half for a direct shoulder to the head of Jamison Gibson-Park, while completely accidental the incident was just worthy of the sin-bin. While the sides traded tries in his absence, the gutter blow came in the second half when referee Luc Ramos gave the prop his marching orders for Bath's faltering scrum.
Despite just five points separating the two league leaders at the time, Bath's second reduction proved too much in the face of a Leinster side who were already gathering momentum. Leo Cullen's men ran in a try just sixty seconds later, and added another two before the clock went red. The game finished 47-21, a far cry from the two-point lead Bath held at halftime and even the five-point deficit they were battling in the final quarter.
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Andy Goode rubbishes Bath red card against Leinster
Speaking about the red card on The Rugby Pod, England great Andy Goode had some choice words about what went down, suggesting that maybe Mack Hansen had a point when he made his controversial comments last month.
We spoke about Mack Hansen last week and his comments after playing against Leinster. He was fucking right wasn't he.
Referee gives first yellow card to Beno Obano, 100% right...completely agree with his first yellow card.
Second yellow card, no warning. He had given two scrum penalties on the spin against Beno Obano, and the french ref, I reckon he's gone to his pocket to say 'right I've had enough of scrums' and he's pulled it out and gone 'oh shit'.
I ain't gonna abuse referees but Luc Ramos it's never a red card.
While the referee had warned both sides about their scrum throughout the game, Goode and his fellow podcasters were all in agreement that it was unnecessary, with Dan Biggar even comparing Obano's struggles in the scrum to an out-half missing kicks or a centre missing tackles, neither of which they'd be sent off by the referee for.
That said, there was little doubt that the scrum became particularly arduous at times in Leinster v Bath, slowing down play after play and constantly breaking up the game with resets, free-kicks and penalties.
World Rugby have introduced rules to try and minimise that impact and improve the product viewers are watching, however, reducing teams to fourteen men may not be the way to achieve that.
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