Like any significant directive or law amendment from World Rugby, the game’s global governing body, there will always be inconsistencies and teething problems, and it came as no surprise that this was the case on the first weekend of games following the implementation of the new laws regarding high tackles.
So it was with more stringent directives regarding the tackler releasing the carrier before contesting for the ball, making tip-tackles illegal and contests for the ball which accentuated the need for a duty of care from those challenging in the air. It’s worth stating that all three have, ultimately, worked to a large degree, albeit after the same teething problems.
No less than with the latter two, something had to be done to reduce the number of dangerously high hits and so reduce the risk of concussions. This has followed the increasing preponderance of more aggressive, rugby league-influenced defensive systems and ball-and-all tackles.
The priority for any governing body is a duty of care for its players.
One wonders if the new directive could not have been implemented in just the Southern Hemisphere before the start of their Super Rugby season, and held back in the Northern Hemisphere until September, rather than have it introduced mid-season. Then again, one can understand World Rugby’s impatience and desire to reduce the number of high hits.
The new directive is intended to reduce contact to the head, whether accidental or intentional, which is worthy in its own right if hard to interpret consistently. The age-old question: how does one prove intent? If the hit is considered accidental, the punishment is a penalty only, whereas if it’s considered reckless, ie that the offender should have known he was going to make contact with the head, then it’s a yellow card; and depending on the velocity, it could be red.
Unfair to the participants
That said, having issued directives to all countries and let each country interpret them as they see fit, they will be implemented differently, which is unfair to the participants, not least in cross-border competitions such as the European Champions and Challenge Cups, as well as the Pro12.
World Rugby should not just stand back and treat this as an experiment, which to a degree it is, before coming out with a verdict at the end of the season. Rather, they should take a more active role in ensuring the inconsistencies are not permitted to continue wildly.
For example, there were, invariably, inconsistencies over the weekend, beginning most notably with the Scarlets-Ulster game on Friday night. When the Scarlets replacement scrumhalf Aled Davies sniped to the blindside of an attacking maul on the hour and dipped low for the line, he was held up and prevented from grounding the ball by Sean Reidy.
Up to a week previously it would have been regarded as an excellent, try-saving tackle. However, after recourse to the TMO, referee Marius Mitrea deemed it a yellow card and worthy of a penalty try. One doubts, and sincerely doubts, that referees such as Nigel Owens and John Lacey would have come to the same verdict.
Given Davies is a small player who was dipping for the line, this seemed grossly excessive. Reidy’s tackle could be considered waist high in normal circumstances. If, say, scrumhalves are to dive low to the ground before the try-line, what is a defending player to do? At any rate, one of the side effects could well be to see more close-range tries, by scrumhalves in particular.
If any player should have been sanctioned in that instance, arguably Andrew Trimble’s one-arm hit on Davies was the worse offence, and more in keeping with what World Rugby have highlighted.
In all of this, World Rugby have not defined whether a tackle on the shoulder, with the tackler also wrapping his other arm around the carrier to prevent him grounding the ball, is the same as tackle on the shoulder which slips onto the neck/head.
Balancing the scales
In light of the yellow card against Reidy and ensuing penalty try, and Mitrea then balancing the scales with an equally harsh yellow card against the Scarlets lock Jake Ball, the Ospreys coach Steve Tandy reckoned that the new directive was making the game "unreffable". That said, he had no issue with Lacey yellow carding his own player Sam Davies.
On Saturday at the Stade Yves du Manoir, Tommy O'Donnell was laid out by a high one-armed hit from Chris Masoe, which was worthy of a penalty even before World Rugby's new year diktat, and which was duly awarded. But it also seemed worthy of recourse to the TMO for a further sanction and, under the new guidelines, a yellow card. That seemed to fall into the category of reckless and dangerous.
In the Saracens-Exeter game on Saturday, the home prop Richard Barrington was red-carded for a dangerous hit on Exeter's Geoff Parling, and pretty much all agreed that this was a fair cop under the new directive.
Parling had initially been hit high by Brad Barritt, who appeared fortunate not to receive a yellow card under the new directive, before stumbling into Barrington’s shoulder, which connected with Parling’s face. Indeed, Barritt has also been cited.
It was not dissimilar to Sam Cane's shoulder hitting Robbie Henshaw initially on the head in the Ireland-New Zealand game, after Henshaw had twisted out of another tackle and was dipping into the impact from Cane. Had Jaco Peyper yellow-carded or even red-carded Cane, one wonders whether this new directive would have come to pass. Certainly, in light of World Rugby's new edict, it would presumably be a yellow or even a red card now.
Invariably there will be yet more yellow and red cards to come than would have been the case before last week, many of them hotly debated, and which will affect the results of games. But if it comes to pass that the new directive changes player behaviour, reduces high hits and concussions, and thus makes the game safer, then it has to be considered a good thing.
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