Nigel Owens says if players feel strongly enough to complain then referees should listen to them on the pitch

Seeing the Tadhg Furlong incident last week - with the Ireland prop accused of grabbing the groin of Munster's Gavin Coombes during a URC match last Saturday, of which he was cleared - it reminded me of taking charge of England against Ireland at Twickenham a while back.

During the match, Stephen Ferris came up to me and said that he'd been bitten, alleging it was Dylan Hartley. Back then, you couldn't go to the TMO to check things as you could now. But there was clearly a bite mark on his hand. But, even though he said it was Hartley, without me actually seeing that myself, there was no way I could send anyone off based only on an accusation.

Clearly, he had been bitten, but I had no idea who did it. So there was nothing I could do. In the end, Hartley was cited and banned - so it was him who did it.

It can be a very difficult situation for a referee, sometimes, because there's an expectation for you to check things out and take action if appropriate. It doesn't happen very often, but it's relatively common for players to come to referees and tell them there's been a bite or a gouge. Often, they won't know who it is, but sometimes they do.

More often than not, you just have to leave it to the citing process, because there's only so much you can do in a match environment. They'll look at it in the cold light of day, with access to all the replays and with no time pressure, and come to a decision.

There's only so much you can do as a referee. On that day, I could see there was a bite - but proving who did it was another matter.

Now, I don't believe you should lean on that to brush things off and rely on the citing commissioner to pick things up, because that affects the match. If you can make a decision confidently, you should. It's just that isn't always easy with these sorts of incidents.

One thing for sure, if a player does commit an act of foul play these days, with all the cameras and angles, they'll get found out eventually.

There has been some people suggesting the Munster player shouldn't have raised the accusation with the referee. Something similar was said when Joe Marler grabbed Alun Wyn Jones at Twickenham years ago, with some believing there's an unwritten rule between players that this sort of thing is left on the pitch and not brought to wider attention.

But that just doesn't wash. Even if you look at the Marler one, which was done more in jest than an act of foul play - trying to be clever rather than malicious - it still isn't appropriate and it needed dealing with. You just shouldn't do that on the pitch. Do it on the street and you're in big trouble, after all.

Ultimately, it's no different to a player claiming there was a bite or a gouge. Nobody would ever think twice about going up to the referee and saying that had happened to them. If a player feels seriously that any type of behaviour was totally unacceptable, why shouldn't it be brought to the referee's attention?

Now, you don't want players accusing opponents falsely or rolling around trying to get them sent off. But these things need to be flagged.

It's difficult for a referee to deal with all that in the heat of the moment on the pitch when everybody's waiting for a decision to be made, and you've got to decide whether his hand went up there to move a player out of the way and contact was made accidentally - as no doubt has happened numerous times in the game - or did he do it intentionally?

It's difficult for a referee to make that decision on the intention of something unless he sees absolutely clear pictures of a hand going and grabbing the area and then twisting after or something. Unless the referee sees those clear pictures, it's very difficult to decide if something was intentional or not.

That's where the citing process can look at everything and all the different angles in the cold light of day when there's no pressure on you to make a decision in that moment. You've got all the different footages, you can zoom in, have further evidence, and inquire more about it.

It's a bit more difficult for a referee to deal with on the field, but I think if a player feels strongly enough and the complaint is genuine - like a gouge, a bite or this particular incident - then why would you not bring it to the attention of the referee? I wouldn't have an issue at all with a player coming to me, like Stephen Ferris did that day in Twickenham.