On Thursday morning Garry Ringrose will know his fate, when he attends an independent disciplinary hearing after he received a red card from referee Christophe Ridley in Ireland’s Six Nations match against Wales in Cardiff on Saturday.
Ringrose was initially shown yellow after a collision with Ben Thomas, but it was upgraded to red by the TMO bunker under a law being trialled in this year’s championship.
The initial time in the sin bin was extended from 10 to 20 minutes after which the rule states he had to be substituted for another player. Centre Bundee Aki replaced Ringrose after the 20 minutes was completed.
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He will attend the hearing via video conference at 9am before an independent disciplinary committee consisting of chairman Matthew Weaver (England), joined by Stefan Terblanche (South Africa) and Leon Lloyd (England).
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The outcome will determine what further part the Irish outside centre will have in Ireland’s two remaining games against France in Dublin and Italy in Rome.
“We cover a lot of line speed,” said Leinster and Ireland’s Jimmy O’Brien. “So, you have to be quite good at dipping your height and stuff like that. It’s something we all work on.
“Garry is obviously unlucky. He’s one of the best defenders, I think, out there. He’s so good at shooting in and stuff like that, 99 per cent of the time he gets it right. He just got unlucky at the weekend. Everyone in here would be working on tackling, especially the wide lads because we have to shoot in so much.”
One of the great strengths in Ringrose’s game is his line speed in defence. He is often the first player up in the outside channels putting attacking opposition runners under pressure, making his tackle or forcing the players to make hurried passes. There is often some level of jeopardy involved in getting into the correct body position with both players moving at pace.
“Exactly, you have to be pretty precise,” said O’Brien, who hopes to play this weekend against Cardiff in Leinster’s United Rugby Championship match. “In training you try to do it, even if it’s not contact. You try to sprint out of the line, and you try to drop your body height.
“You try to train and make it a habit. You’re dropping the hips and stuff ... The last couple of years obviously with the height and everything, they’ve probably shone a light on it. So, everyone is trying to get lower, but it’s just something we try to work on in training and even after training.”
Ringrose has an excellent disciplinary record with both Leinster and Ireland and is rarely on the wrong side of the laws. However, head-on-head contact is, for reasons of safety, punished harshly in the modern game and although there was no malice involved in the collision, the infringement is expected to carry a suspension.
“It was head on head and was adjudged that there was no mitigation,” said Leinster assistant coach Tyler Bleyendaal, who replaced Andrew Goodman when he stepped up into the Irish squad.
“Garry is a quality defender. He’ll have to improve that tackle technique. I just thought he was trying to execute an aggressive tackle.
“I mean we haven’t been in too much trouble with the high tackle. I think getting off the line, being aggressive and having [a] good change of height until the collision, it’s just part of what we do so ... unfortunate. I think trying to see if there was mitigation ... [but I] probably can’t comment if there is or isn’t. Yeah, he’ll be looking to improve because he’s a quality defender. He wants to make those aggressive tackles effectively.”
The most recent disciplinary case over the same infringement involved French outhalf Romain Ntamack, who was given a two-week suspension for a breach of law 9.13. The disciplinary committee, which had former Irish international referee Donal Courtney on the panel, upheld the red card and determined that the mid-range entry point of six weeks/matches was appropriate.
Ntamack accepted during the hearing that he had committed an act of foul play and with mitigating factors such as his exemplary disciplinary record, the committee applied the full 50 per cent reduction in sanction and reduced the final penalty to three weeks/matches.
That was further cut to two matches as Ntamack agreed to attend “tackle school”. Having missed France’s games against England and Italy, he is now free to play against Ireland in Dublin on March 8th.
