Munster head coach Clayton McMillan said the days of rugby players being sent off for thuggery are gone and that most disciplinary decisions now involving red cards are for technical fouls.
He’s pleased that hooker Diarmuid Barron, who had a yellow card upgraded to a 20-minute red card in the defeat to Connacht last weekend, had the decision rescinded by a disciplinary committee.
The decision proved costly for Munster. They were trailing 7-0 when the incident with Connacht hooker Dylan Tierney-Martin happened and by the time replacement hooker Lee Barron came on at the end of the red card, the deficit was out to 21-0.
“The main ones that you see really are head on head contact – the days where acts of thuggery were red-card incidents; those are long gone now and what we’re seeing is just people get technique slightly wrong and the only way to improve that is through repetition and training best practice and hopefully that’s what evolves,” McMillan said.
“We try to just coach best practice. There are no coaches in here that sort of coach to try to push the letter of the law or bend the rules.
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“Coach best practice and in a dynamic situation there are just always going to be incidents that either put yourself or somebody else in danger and we all know what the consequences of those are.”
Diarmuid Barron has been selected on the bench for the crunch United Rugby Championship (URC) clash against the Lions on Saturday evening and McMillan welcomed the outcome of disciplinary decisions.
“You know moments that referees have to make a decision, on and by their own admission they’ll get some right and they’ll get a few wrong, but that’s the game,” the New Zealander said.
“And as I said post game last week that’s a kind of reflection of our game that can be complicated at times and continuously searching of ways to make it simpler for them, simpler for players and easier for people sitting in the stands to understand as well.
“So there’s some ongoing challenges, but I think in the judiciary hearing they came to the right conclusion. We accepted that there was some foul play on our part, but there’s certainly no maliciousness in that and that we feel sorry for the player who received an injury.
“But thankfully we didn’t start with the injury as the reason why we got to a red card. It was effectively a dynamic situation that went a little wrong.”
McMillan also welcomed the return from injury of Jack Crowley for this clash.
“Jack’s integral part of the side as everybody knows and he’s just really comfortable in his own skin; his game makes others around him look better and feel better through his presence, through his calmness, through his clear communication.
“So it’s great to have him back and you know we’ve got JJ [Hanrahan] there as backup if required, but he’s trained really well this weekend and we’ll need him.”