SCOTLAND coach Gregor Townsend has complained to Six Nations officials about the incident that has cost him the services of full-back Stuart Hogg but says the rest of the conversation should remain private since there is nothing more that can be done about it.

Townsend was deeply unhappy that during the match Romain Poite, the referee, missed the incident and the television match official also refused to step in, but accepts it was not bad enough to be worth a red card, which rules out any later intervention from the citing commissioner.

The incident, when Hogg chipped ahead for himself but Peter O’Mahony, the Ireland flanker, tackled him late and without using his arms, allowing Hogg to somersault over him and land uncontrolled on the point of his shoulder.

While he was still out of the game, Ireland kicked into the space behind the Scotland backs and confusion between Tommy Seymour and Sean Maitland gifted Conor Murray a try.

“It’s disappointing,” said Townsend. “It was a double-whammy for us at the time in that we lost a player for that sequence of phases – he would have been in position to take that kick – and we then lost the try.

"It would have been nice to go back to the TMO because it was part of that sequence of play. Then we lost a key player for us for the rest of the game. So, really disappointing for Stuart.

“When TMOs come in they’ve got more chance of being conclusive.

"You’ve got a minute-and-a-half from when the try has been scored – some teams like to take that conversion quickly, but the referee has control over that.

“If the referee thinks he clearly saw what happened, then that’s fine, but the game moves fast. We understand that referees won’t see everything.

"Because a try has been scored you would have thought that would be the perfect time to say, ‘Can we check on that? It happened just behind me and one of the players has been injured. So can we have a chance to look at that slowed down?’

“Citing commissioners will only cite on red cards, though, and that wasn’t a red-card offence.”

What particularly annoyed Townsend was the inconsistency on display, with the referee using the TMO on other occasions.

“Our try that wasn’t a try, when Sam Johnson almost scored in the corner, they didn’t just go back to see whether Sam Johnson had scored it, they looked back at three phases earlier when Blair Kinghorn had a forward pass.

"We just look for more consistency there, especially when a player gets injured,” he added.

There is no real doubt that if Poite had gone back to look at how Hogg was hurt, he would have penalised the Irish player, wiping out the try at a key stage in the game a few minutes after Greig Laidlaw had given Scotland an early lead.

“We brought up a number of incidents [with the Six Nations organisers],” he added. “This happens normally, it wasn't just this specific game.

"We've had feedback back from our feedback but that's probably private between ourselves, Alain Rolland and the referees' assessment team.

“When you look at the incident again, and they've had time to review it, then obviously an offence occurred.”

Whatever the complaints about this incident, Townsend has stopped well short of claiming the officiating cost Scotland the game against Ireland, acknowledging it was Scotland’s own mistakes in both attack and defence that allowed the visitors to Murrayfield off the hook.