By JOHN FALLON

FRUSTRATED Connacht fans probably agreed and admired every word uttered by Mack Hansen as he let fly with both barrels at the match officials after the loss to Leinster, but the net result is that the Canberra native is now likely to find himself in hot water with the IRFU and tournament officials.

The 26-year old has only played five times for Connacht in 2024 since being injured on New Year’s Day — he returned for Ireland for the first time since the World Cup in the Autumn Internationals — and the last thing head coach Pete Wilkins needs now is for one of his star players to be banned.

Hansen has always been a straight-talker since he arrived in Galway over three years ago and for all the bullets he directed towards referee Chris Busby and television match official Mark Patton, he was the first to acknowledge they didn’t help their own cause against an understrength Leinster side.

“It’s very frustrating. Silly penalties and a couple of lapses in concentration sort of cost us a bit. I felt like also towards the end we were actually being allowed to play which was nice. To be honest, it felt like we were getting reffed out of the game for the first 40 minutes, pretty much.

“Then, we were able to do our thing. We were able to show the exciting rugby that we play. We’re not a team for excuses, but that’s what I feel. I feel like the first bit we were getting pressured from what seemed like 16 men against us instead of 15 to be honest to you.

“I’d like to see stats on the first half but for the first 25 minutes I couldn’t tell you how much ball we had at all. We just defended, defended, defended, defended the whole time. All it was that we just finally got the ball in our hands.

“It wasn’t that we were trying to push things or doing anything different to what we train . . . we were doing exactly how we train, but we finally had the ball and that’s why we started playing. As long as I’ve been here, we play a good brand of footie — we always have.

Pictured: Connacht winger Mack Hansen who has voiced his frustrations over the match officials’ handling of Saturday’s URC tie against Leinster at the Aviva Stadium.