Wolves and Sunderland played out a 1-1 draw at Molineux as Dan Ballard was sent off for pulling the hair of Tolu Arokodare.
When Nordi Mukiele headed Sunderland in front early on it looked likely to be a straightforward afternoon for the visitors, but they found themselves on the back foot once VAR intervened to send off Ballard for pulling the hair of Arokodare.
Relegated Wolves pushed for an equaliser and it came when Santi Bueno headed in Hugo Bueno's corner, but neither side were able to come up with the winner. The home side came closest when Arokodare contrived to clear the crossbar in stoppage time.
There were boos at the full-time whistle, the home support dissatisfied with Rob Edwards and his substitutions. But the failure to win is more significant for Regis Le Bris and Sunderland who missed the chance to push for Europe. They end the day in 12th.
This was not even the first time that a player has been sent off for pulling Arokodare's hair. Everton's Michael Keane had previously been red carded for the same offence against the Wolves striker. These reds are a theme of the Premier League season.
Speaking about the incident in the press conference after the game, Le Bris said: "We understand the rule, Paul Tierney is a great referee, but the execution of the rule is hard."
He added: "It's really hard to digest because I don't think it was intentional and violent conduct. It was a duel in the air with a tall striker, 1.98 or 1.99 metres, 100 kilos more or less. Ballard is massive as well. You battle in the air 20 times in the game. Many things can happen, but it wasn't intentional.
"But if the rule is the rule, probably when you face a striker with long hair, you'll have problems because you can't defend. And it was more or less the case. They executed the rule, but I think it's a bit hard to digest."
It was a difficult afternoon for the Wolves boss with expectations rising once his team had the man advantage. Fans booed his decision to withdraw Hugo Bueno, the decision accompanied by chants of 'You don't know what you're doing' aimed in his direction.
Edwards explained that call afterwards. "They love Hugo and we do as well, but the rationale was pretty clear behind it. We wanted to get another forward on the pitch and we want to look after him. He's not been fully fit all week, he's not trained fully all week."
The Wolves boss had previously said he would always applaud the fans at the end, but opted not to. "I was frustrated but also I just thought, I'm not going to incite it anymore. I don't want to make the ground any more angry, so that was probably why," he explained.
"I understand the situation at the moment, we've been relegated, bottom of the league, we've gone down and drawn a game against 10 men, we've just been off the back of three defeats in a row, there's a lot of anger around and I'm going to take it.
"I knew coming in this was going to be really, really challenging, I knew at some stage we were probably going to be in this sort of situation. Why do we put ourselves through it? Why do we do it? But it will be all the more rewarding when we are able to turn things around."
