Ulster head coach Richie Murphy felt Tom O’Toole’s 30th minute red card in his side’s dramatic 22-19 defeat to Munster was “tough”, as he firmly believes that the Ireland prop did not commit an illegal act.
O’Toole was sent off after referee Ben Whitehouse ruled that the tighthead had dropped his weight onto Alex Nankivell’s exposed leg at a ruck, which forced the Munster centre off with what interim head coach Ian Costellos confirmed was a hamstring injury, as opposed to a knee issue. The severity of Nankivell’s injury will be determined in the coming days, but the Kiwi is highly unlikely to feature against Leinster at Thomond Park next week.
Speaking about the incident that led to O’Toole being given his first-half marching orders, Murphy said: “Obviously the red card is a big moment in the game. It’s a tough red because he’s square, he’s through the gate, he makes contact square on, he’s not on the side, but as that guy is knocked backwards, his leg comes out and Tom does fall on his leg. So I can kind of understand that, but it is difficult because it is not an illegal act at the start, where he starts.”
Murphy was left bitterly disappointed by the agonising loss, the province’s fifth straight defeat in all competitions.
“We don’t feel sorry for ourselves, we just get on with it,” conceded Murphy.
“(I’m) Bitterly disappointed but proud of the effort and commitment the boys put in.
“We had chances to win the game, we didn’t win it, it doesn’t matter if you have 14 or 15, we have to win the game when you’re in a position to win it.
“What we’ve talked about is making sure we’re not self-inflicting our wounds.
“As good as we were for quite a lot of periods, we still made some errors that cost us in the end,” Murphy admitted after Tom Farrell’s hat-trick try, coming in the 79th minute ensured that the visitors headed into Christmas with the all-important victory.
Ulster scored tries through O’Toole early on and then managed second half scores from Harry Sheridan and James McNabney, the latter in the 76th minute which with John Cooney’s conversion appeared to put the 14-man hosts in position to win the game.
There was no doubting Murphy’s frustration both at this own side and some of the decisions made on the field in terms of officiating. Primarily, though, he felt that his side, who had to manage a rejigged backline as well as losing O’Toole early on, made some calls which were their undoing.
“Ultimately, we get two chances to exit, and we don’t exit properly, and we miss two touches in the second half one in the first half as well, three tries come off the back of that which is obviously disappointing.
As for the disruption from injuries and the red card he added: “Where do you start?
“The game itself, we’re in it, go 7-0 up and the red card is a big moment in the game.
“Then to lose Zac Ward and Stuart McCloskey (to injury), bring on a young out half (Jack Murphy, Richie’s son) push your out half to 13, take your winger off (Rory Telfer) who’s just come on and it’s a bit of a mess at that stage.”
However, the coach praised his team’s ability to stick in the game and so nearly win it to break the sequence of defeats.
“I thought we found a way to get back into the game incredibly proud of the lads’ commitment and performance we just need to be better in really big moments just ball off the park and a little bit more patience around the goal line.
“We get a line break in the second half from Scott Wilson who runs 40 metres, gets tackled on the five-metre line gets to the line and they give away a penalty, I’m not sure how that’s not a yellow card and obviously the game changes as we’re back to 14 against 14.”
As for the five-game losing sequence he said: “We just have to get one of these over the line and we’ll be running again.
“We always knew this would be a really tough period and today we happen to have fed Munster a little bit.
“We were really good at times keeping them trapped down their end and putting them under pressure but any time we had a restart into us we conceded.”