Connect a punch and it’s like you flashed a school girl in the park. Miss, and you are a loveable old rogue. Writing for Vodacom Rugby, TANK LANNING says it’s the intent that should be punished.
Tank Lanning
If I aim a gun at you with the intention to kill you, pull the trigger, but miss, I cannot be accused of murder.
The truth, but to my mind, not an analogy or interpretation of the law applicable to sport. Yet, as per Willie le Roux’s yellow card for an ill-timed aerial contest in PE on Saturday, that is exactly how the game is being refereed.
In fact, based on previous decisions this year, the Boks could not have had a complaint had Le Roux seen red.
Referees have been instructed by World Rugby to base the punishment handed out to a player who finds himself in an unrealistic position to compete for the ball in the air, on how the other player lands.
Penalty only if the player lands safely, yellow card if the player lands on his back or neck, and a red card if there is some sort of deliberate action and the player lands in a dangerous position.
Why punish the outcome? Surely it makes more sense to punish the intent?
Punching is seemingly dealt with in the same manner. Miss, and you are a loveable old rogue, hit, and it’s like you flashed a school girl in the park. Yet both actions started with the same intent.
Willie le Roux get yellow and a one week suspension. CJ Stander got red and a two week suspension. Jeremy Ward got yellow and a two week suspension. Leolin Zas got red and a two week suspension.
Sure, all incidents are all slightly different, but based on the suspensions, all of similar nature. Yet two were deemed worthy of red cards which has a much more dramatic (and perhaps unfair in that it affects the whole team) effect on the game.
A yellow card at the time, followed by a hearing to look into the exact nature of the incident seems a much fairer way to handle these contests.
Or if deemed more serious, how about the team plays with 14 men for 20 minutes, but then gets to replace the transgressor with a player from the bench?
We need to keep the aerial contest in the game. Contestable kicks are one of the few ways to bridge these omnipresent and almost inpenetratable defences. Yet player safety is paramount, and so it should be. Players do need to be aware of the consequences of their actions, but it is a contact sport and accidents are going to happen.
Because of the way scrums are being refereed, teams now try to milk the almost inevitable penalty instead of going for the right shoulder advantage to get their backline away. It’s been terrible for the game.
If continuing to referee the aerial contest as it is currently, might teams opt for less contestable kicks due the risk of losing a player to the bin, and instead go for distance or touch? Basically a game of gainers with the heavies standing in the middle getting neck ache from watching the aerial ping pong? How dreadful.
Red cards are being handed out like Smarties at a 6 year old’s birthday party. Let’s keep those for the real roughnecks who punch, eye gauge or head-butt, not for skilled brave players happy to compete for the ball in the air, but get the timing slightly wrong.
