I think a point that most are missing is that an assumption is being made that because the linesamn who made the major call was 'inexperienced', therefore that call was somehow wrong.
I am of the opinion that neither the lino or Hicks saw the original slash on Finnerty (it happens) however, Hicks didn't see Finnerty's retaliatory 2 handed slash but the so called inexperienced lino did and did his job according to the rules. The lino had to wait for a break in play before reporting this to Hicks, they then spoke for a while, Hicks then had to make a decision, back up his lino or get on with the game, he chose to back his lino and I don't see too much wrong with that. I honestly feel we maybe could have handled a 5 on 4 to a certain extent but once we took the other 2 pens that reduced us to 5 on 3 for so long, we were our own worse enemies. I'm, not defending Hicks, he is not a good ref, but I am defending the lino who I felt did the correct thing.