Former Test referee Owen Doyle insists that player safety, rather than the game’s spectacle, should be World Rugby’s primary concern with the sport split on how dangerous play should be punished.
While the southern hemisphere have clamoured for the 20-minute red card, and duly got their wish with it going to a global trial, the north have been more reluctant to change.
Its critics, which has included the unions from Ireland and France, state that it could hinder player welfare.
Current World Rugby chair Brett Robinson is a fan of the sanction, however, and bemoaned the fact it took “a lot longer” than anticipated to introduce it due to the reluctance in the northern hemisphere.
Robinson suggested they needed to “better understand it”, but Doyle claims that is not the case.
‘Must be central to World Rugby’s thinking’
“Robinson says the ‘north’ have been slow to adopt the bunker system due to a lack of understanding. But it’s actually nothing to do with understanding, it is all about player safety and welfare,” he wrote in his Irish Times column.
“Those who oppose the 20-minute red card are completely genuine in their conviction that the referee should be allowed to issue a permanent straight red.
“And not just for egregious violence such as head butts, testicle-twisting and eye-gouging, all of which have made ugly appearances recently.
“Concerned unions know that unlawful dangerous collisions, concussions and dementia are ever present and that the avoidance of brain trauma must be central to World Rugby’s thinking. If it is not, the sport has a terribly serious problem.”
While the 20-minute red card is now being trialled globally, Doyle is not sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to its implementation, including the officials.
A straight red can still be dished out if an incident is deemed serious enough and that was demonstrated when three Springboks players were sent-off in the November internationals.
Lood de Jager was one of the players to be dismissed but Doyle felt Australian Angus Gardner was only going to issue a yellow before his assistants intervened.
Difference of opinion
“Robinson refers to the differences as being ‘hemispheric’ and he’s right,” he added.
“In the recent match between France and South Africa match it appeared that referee Angus Gardner was reaching for a yellow card for Lood de Jager’s head-high assault on France’s Thomas Ramos. However, having consulted his ‘northern’ assistants, Gardner delivered a straight red.
“It points to a perturbing point of difference as to what kind of dangerous play deserves a straight red and what kind goes to the bunker.
“We hear lots of talk about balancing the spectacle of the game with player safety. If De Jager-like actions are only a 20-minute red card then the balance tilts completely to ‘spectacle’. That’s a point of view, I suspect, which will be derided down south.”
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