Wanganui rugby prop Shaun McDonough had a smile on his face after the team's victory on Saturday - but it struggled to hide the bruises.
McDonough did a lot of good for the home team in its Heartland win (50-34) over Poverty Bay - but left them in the lurch a bit as well. It was the subject of some discussion afterwards.
McDonough suffered the wrath of tough-judge Murray O'Hara after 39 minutes of Saturday's Heartland Championship match at Cooks Gardens after retaliating for a series of punches thrown at him by Poverty Bay hooker Ngarimu Simpkins, leaving Wanganui down to 14 men for the first 10 minutes of the second half after he was yellow-carded.
The yellow was a decision which led to the home team giving away two tries in that period before finally getting out to a 50-34 win.
O'Hara explains his call: "What I saw was this - Shaun got blown in the tackle on to the ground.
"What I saw next was him on top of the player, holding him and punching him with his right arm - three short jabs.
"But he was also involved with something at the previous scrum where he got a blood nose."
O'Hara said neither he nor the referee Sheldon Eden-Whaitiri saw what happened at that scrum.
Simpkins had already been yellow-carded for a high tackle that laid-out Wanganui No8 Adam Roe - had he been seen he would have been red-carded.
It seems to be a tighthead prop problem - McDonough and his Ruapehu teammate Sheldon O'Hagen have been yellow-carded once each in the past two matches - a situation not uncommon in the past couple of years.
Why? It seems they have a reputation which goes before them.
McDonough said: "I was receiving a little bit of extra attention because I always seem to. Sheldon [O'Hagen] and I ... they always try to work us. They know, what would you call it, that we have a lesser tolerance for stupidity!
"I guess we get aimed at a little bit. You try to be above it, but at the end of the day I took too many punches - I had to throw one."
As luck would have it, that was what O'Hara spotted.
Wanganui coach Guy Lennox: "He took quite a lot of blows, responded with his own - and yet he gets binned and the other fellow doesn't. But I guess the touchies can only go on what they see - somehow they didn't see the first flurry and only saw the second bit."
Wanganui faces North Otago and Mid Canterbury in the next two weeks and certainly cannot afford to lose players for 10 minutes at a time - or worse.
Poverty Bay scored two tries while McDonough was off and came from 31-10 down to 31-20.
It was a day of interesting touch-judge calls. Wanganui captain Matt Gilbert finally crossed the line - in his 48th match - for what seemed to be his first try.
But way back 60 metres TJ Marty Bulloch had his flag up for what was apparently an illegal tackle by Tau Moeke. The 31st minute try was disallowed and a penalty given to Poverty Bay.
Gilbert joked about it in his speech at the after-match.
Lennox again: "It was just a bit of a shoulder charge, not a lot in it. The ref saw it pretty clearly - then 70-odd metres later, back they come. It was pretty disappointing. He was back at halfway celebrating - and it's over-ruled.
" Luckily we were able to get back and score again before halftime."
McDonough's bin there, done that
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