The night before England captain Owen Farrell was shown a red card for a horrible high tackle on Wasps' Charlie Atkinson, Bristol Bears' director of rugby Pat Lam blasted the officials for not protecting players enough.
On Friday night after Bristol's 13-36 victory over Worcester Warriors at Sixways, Lam uncharacteristically took fire at the officiating team after star signing Semi Radradra was stuck in the face by the forearm of Melani Nanai.
Worcester fullback Nanai was making his return to action after serving a three game suspension following earning a red card for a now arms tackle on Gloucester winger Jonny May.
In the 43rd minute Radradra made a stunning 70 yard break from inside his own 22 after taking a short pass from scrum half Harry Randall. The Fijian drew in three Worcester players in the backfield and was eventually chopped down by Francois Venter but as the centre fell Nanai swung an arm as he attempted to tackle which caught the Bears' marquee signing in face leaving him needing treatment from the Bristol medical team.
Post match Lam was at odds to explain why the incident had not been more harshly dealt with by the officiating team.
He said: “I cannot understand all the interrogation, going through every part of the [disallowed Bristol] try yet Semi Radradra gets a big forearm to his face and they don't even look at it.
"I am not talking about Wayne (Barnes, referee), I am talking about the TMO (Geoff Warren). There were a few other things that were not great, not picked up.
"It is all very well looking at no tries but you have to look at the safety of some of the players. That was frustrating.
“Semi doesn’t go down, he’s a tough man and when I saw what happened I was amazed the TMO didn’t pick it up, we saw it clearly on the footage.
“Wayne didn’t get the close-up shot so he had to see the wide one. The TMO obviously saw it so that’s disappointing, he is a big player for us.
“Those types of cheap shots, with HIA (head injury assessments), he [could have been] out of the game on Tuesday so everyone gets affected by it and it shouldn’t be going on in our game.
“He got up but it is not great.”
Third Bristol face Northampton Saints on Tuesday night looking to keep in the race to finish in the play-offs with fourth place Wasps on Sunday as well.
Losing a player like Radradra to a lengthy injury could sink their entire campaign.
Listening to the discussion between the officiating team over the microphones, referee Barnes asked: "Did anyone have a clear view of the tackle?
One of his assistants is heard to say: "I think it had a downward motion to it.
After appearing to see a reply on the stadium screen Barnes replied: "It is just over the shoulder.
"It is definitely a penalty but you can have the line out if you want."
Bristol took the line out and scored through Dan Thomas at the bottom of a driving maul.
Later in the match tempers boiled over in the closing moments when Siale Piutau was involved in a fracas with Worcester second row Andrew Kitchener who was shown a red card after punching the Bristol centre in the face. Piutau was shown yellow.
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