Andrew rues costly sin bin
October 5, 2001

Newcastle coach Rob Andrew was left to rue a costly sin-bin which effectively killed off his side in a 28-9 Heineken Cup defeat to Leinster at Donnybrook.

Richard Arnold's high tackle on Keat Gleeson effectively ended his interest in the match with 13 minutes to go and having pulled the score back to 16-9 thanks to some accurate penalty kicking from Jonny Wilkinson, it all went badly wrong for the Zurich Premiership side from that point.

Andrew tried to remain philosophical about the defeat and said: "Richie has been known to pick up the odd sin-bin.

"I could see it coming really. He was getting a bit tired and he had missed a few tackles. It was frustrating because Jonny had put us back into contention with those two penalties.

Leinster were awarded a penalty try with five minutes left after two Falcons players strayed offside as Brian O'Meara tried to touch down.

The Irish side put the seal on their victory when Brian O'Driscoll raced over to complete the scoring following an interception by Gleeson.

"We were worried about falling behind early on but the guys were buzzing with confidence at the break," added Andrew.

"I thought they learned an awful lot about themselves tonight and I thought our young hooker, Nick Makin, had an exceptional game for his first game."

"But we knew we were up against a team brimming with confidence. They've been together for a few years now and it showed there tonight.

"Malcolm O'Kelly really hurt us and was pretty much the supply base for their two centres."

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