Red Cards

[Nigel Med]

I’m going to play devils advocate here but does anyone else think that the prevalence of red cards for high tackles is making a mockery of the game at present. Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally in favour of doing everything possible to make the game safer but not at the expense of rugby being an entertaining sport. One player goes into a tackle with poor technique and his entire team is penalised by being reduced to 14 and 9 times out of 10 lose the march as a result.

What doesn’t rest easy with me is that if you lose your rag and deliberately and with considerable malice punch an opponent you get exactly the same sanction as going into a tackle standing upright. Don’t forget that an “upright” or choke tackle is a legitimate technique to create a maul and earn a turnover.

Just an idea but how about some sort of “Orange” card? The guilty player is sent off permanently but the team can bring on a replacement after 10 minutes so it’s a halfway house between a red and yellow. The guilty player is left understanding that he has to improve his technique and the team is weakened by losing a first choice player and being reduced to 14 for 10 minutes but it is far less likely to dictate the result.

Thoughts?

[Bloke in North Dorset]

Funnily enough I was thinking about all those red cards and wondering why they haven't changed behaviour. When TPTB wanted to stamp out the seatbelt tackle it only took a few penalties and yellow cards for behaviour to change. Latching has virtually disappeared after a few penalties.

So why not upright tackles? Your observation about choke tackles is a good one but also teams still fear the offload. So perhaps the number of red cards isn't high enough to change behaviour and coaches aren't stamping it out in training as they'd rather not let too many attacks succeed?

If I'm right then an Orange card as a lighter punishment isn't going to change behaviour at all.

Perhaps we just have to live with the stand up tackle and players pay the price when they get it wrong? I certainly don't like the idea of more red cards, its already killing games as competitions when they happen.

[Shugs]

It’s a tricky one. If I was an Irish fan and had to do without Ryan for the entire game I’d be a bit vexed when England replaced Ewels after 10. The difficulty is that there is no way to differentiate between someone getting atomised in a ruck and someone getting it slightly wrong in the tackle. We absolutely must stop and deter hits to the head but the current law change isn’t really stopping that evidenced by the proliferation of reds we’re seeing. I think the only way round it is to keep the laws as they are but introduce another couple of possible mitigations. Possibly things like third player interference.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

I totally disagree. The red was fully deserved, as have 99% of the ones I have seen. They were dangerous, and most often the results of reckless play, or awful technique.

There should be no appeasement along the lines of 'Oh, I am sure that he didn't mean it, just give him a little slap around the ears.' How can a second row player of his size even contemplate an upright tackle?

Yes, it might have ruined England's day, the 'fans' day, but so what. What about Ryan, poor guy? What did he do to deserve that?

[wycombewasp]

+1

[Shugs]

Not questioning the Ewels red at all. Perfectly fine with that. But I have seen reds where another player changes the height of others immediately prior to the hit. As Warburton was saying on Friday night tackle technique is really not good enough generally (Williams ko was at knee height).

[Mellie]

As Warburton was saying on Friday night tackle technique is really not good enough generally (Williams ko was at knee height).

Yes, favourite shoulder syndrome means making tackles with the head in the wrong place.

The big question is whether senior players are actually coached in tackling technique at all or just assumed to know what they're doing. Holding or stopping players in any manner whatsoever may be considered good enough.

I remember Darren Garforth admitted to have never been taught to tackle at all by the time he was in the England team.

The issue arises from how they were coached as kids and unlearning that is difficult. A big bugbear of mine is players who always carry the ball in 1 arm so aren't in a position to look like they might pass. It stems from fast, elusive or big kids who always score tries but never pass because they don't need to. Daley is an example of someone who carries in 2 hands but there aren't that many.

The way things are going I think some scientific analysis is needed to work out how a team can effectively stop opposition players, by using techniques as individuals and combinations, while reducing risk of red cards and penalties. The really smart sides will do that eventually.

Unfortunately, to answer the OP, if a team get away with an orange card then it only targets individuals to do better and abrogates the coaches' responsibility.

[Rossm]

When I started playing rugby all of 65 years ago. It was full contact and we were taught to always tackle low. When I started playing with the big boys, 10 years later, a high tackle meant you had already got everything wrong and risked a hand in the mush.

We were also taught, if we ended up on the ground, in the middle of a loose scrum to wrap our hands and arms round our head to protect it from flying boots. I don't think I've seen any one do that for god knows how long.

[Andywasp50]

I think behaviour hasn’t changed because the size of the players plus the speed and intensity of the game makes it near impossible to avoid those kind of incidents. One of the big problems is that in the professional era coaches have been looking for a power advantage - greater size and physicality with harder collisions and which is near impossible to bring to a quick stop. Gym monkeys built to bash lumps out of each other are going to lack a bit of subtlety.

Controversially, I was thinking that maybe common sense yesterday, and applicable to other ‘test match intensity’ games, would have seen the ref take into consideration that only 82 seconds had passed, the players were cold,  in a cauldron and ‘pumped’ and the game had got off to a frantic start, so a yellow would have sufficed.

I know that’s not good enough and given Ryan had come out of it badly isn’t the answer, but the fact that Ewels is out of his depth in test rugby isn’t mitigation enough on its own!

[DGP Wasp]

I totally disagree. The red was fully deserved, as have 99% of the ones I have seen. They were dangerous, and most often the results of reckless play, or awful technique.

But is that not, in part, the point that the OP was making.  Same sanction in the match for poor technique, recklessness or out and out pre-meditated thuggery.  Ewels was guilty of poor technique, nothing more.

I like the orange card idea.  Still a deterrent as the individual player will face a subsequent ban.  Ryan missed the whole game as a result, and Ewels gets the same sanction as well as a ban to follow, but the team can be restored to 15 after 10 minutes.  I guess the problem comes in making that distinction between poor technique and recklessness.  The deliberate stuff in usually easy enough to identify.

My other issue with the red cards for head clashes in the tackle is that all the responsibility lies with the tackler, and none on the ball carrier.  I have yet to see an instance where the ball carrier is penalised for a head on head collision, even if they dropped their height to cause the clash.  Outcome in this case would likely be red reduced to yellow for the tackler due to the mitigation of the ball carrier's change of height.

[hookender]

Rob Baxter on rugbypass re red card for Exeter this weekend

I can’t complain about it because there is a freeze-frame in there, where there is a chin down to the shoulder at force,” he added on the Exeter Chiefs website. “It feels awkward because they happen quite a lot in the game these. Now, those chest to chest collisions, if that are that high and they look wrong, they are leading to cards.

“We had a similar one go the the other way up at Newcastle the other week, so I can’t stand here and complain that they are going one way, because they are certainly not.”

For Baxter it’s very much about getting a message to his players that upright or ‘chest-to-chest’ tackling with force is too great a risk in the current climate.

“The one thing I can say is that they are only going one way against high tacklers, so all we can do is keep driving that you can’t jump in with force at chest height because you run the risk of being carded.”

 I think when orange cards were first mooted , the time was 20 mins? This would seem a better punishment ( if rules were to change) plus replacement player.