Ernie Merrick slams rival for ‘horror two-footed tackle’, puts referee on blast

BRISBANE defender Jacob Pepper has escaped a retrospective ban for his foul on Jets import Patricio Rodriguez, despite an angry demand for action from Newcastle boss Ernie Merrick.

Patricio Rodriguez failed to train after the tackle from Pepper.

BRISBANE defender Jacob Pepper has escaped a retrospective ban for his foul on Jets import Patricio Rodriguez, despite an angry demand for action from Newcastle boss Ernie Merrick.

The A-League’s match review panel decided on Monday that it did not have jurisdiction to rule on whether Pepper’s two-footed lunge that has sidelined Rodriguez was worthy of a red card and a ban.

The Argentine sat out Newcastle training on Monday with an ankle left bruised by the clash in Friday’s 1-0 win for the Jets — a challenge that was not even deemed a foul by referee Jonathan Barreiro.
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Jacob Pepper crunches Andrew Nabbout.

Though Merrick had earlier demanded that the MRP act, the challenge was not seen as missed by the match officials when the panel met on Monday. If an incident is deemed to have been dealt with on the field, the MRP has very limited scope to get involved.

Merrick launched an outspoken attack on Pepper for what he said was the sort of tackle that should be banished from the league, and which he claimed could easily have left Rodriguez with a broken ankle.

Though the win kept the Jets in second place, six points behind Sydney, Merrick has had to juggle a succession of injuries to key players.

Ernie Merrick has called on two-footed challenges to be outlawed from the game.

Sensitivities are particularly high at the Jets after the broken ankle suffered by new signing Ronald Vargas which will rule him out for most of the season.

Though Merrick emphasised that Vargas’s injury was not due to the tackle from roar midfielder Matt McKay, he expressed disbelief that Pepper’s challenge had not been penalised.

“Pato is suffering from a horror tackle in the 54th minute when a player jumped in with two feet and landed on his ankle, but the referee said he didn’t see it despite being three metres away,” Merrick said.

“It meant that Pato couldn’t run with as much pace for the rest of the game, he’s been hobbling since and he currently can’t train fully.

“We were keen to have him in full training so he’d be available from the start next weekend.”

Merrick said Rodriguez had been left with a contusion on the ankle. “He’s very lucky, if he’d had more weight on the ankle it would have been broken for sure.

“These are the sort of tackles we’re trying to get rid of in the A-League. We’ve already lost Vargas, though that wasn’t due to the tackle, but he’s out for 16 weeks. We don’t want to lose our best players because someone decides to launch into a two-footed tackle.

Originally published as Ernie Merrick slams rival for ‘horror two-footed tackle’, puts referee on blast