Penalise original offenders first and retaliators second
Roar Guru By stillmissit, 19 May 2010 stillmissit is a Roar Guru
- Tagged:
- Bulls, Rugby Union, Stormers, Super Rugby
I must state upfront, I am an old forward and see the world differently due to this. Bulls v Stormers 10mins second half. Bulls prop is over the ball and the Stormers player grabs him around the neck and tries to yank him out of the ruck by his head.
The prop retaliates and punches him in the stomach. Penalty to the Stormers for retaliation and another 3 points in a one sided match.
Everybody including the ref saw this piece of dangerous thuggery by the Stormers player, yet he gets off scot free.
Is this fair?
I was a ref for many years and hated the retaliation rule and would penalise the original offender, if I saw what went on and warn the retaliator, or send them both off, if it was a bad or dangerous situation.
Why is retaliation so bad?
If you are being strangled by a player at the bottom of a ruck, or they are gouging you in the eyes, then are you supposed to lay there and take it in the hope of the ref seeing what went on?
In the rules, there is an assumption of the first penalty, and in the case above, the first penalty was dangerous play by the Stormers player.
Why shouldn’t this principal apply?
When did we get to this ‘girly’ stage of playing rugby where psychopaths get protection and normal players get sent off or penalised?
I am not advocating the opportunity for the psychopaths to change sides, but the first principal should always be protection of the innocent and penalties for original guilt.
Jesus had a fine idea when he suggested turning the other cheek, and this principal may have influenced the laws. However, Jesus never played rugby. If he had, he may never have said this.
I see this sort of play every week and I think it is unfair and supports the guilty against the semi innocent. It is time for the rugby union to look at this situation and start to penalise original offenders first and retaliation second.
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- Explore:
- Bulls, Rugby Union, Stormers, Super Rugby
May 19th 2010 @ 6:55am
arbitro storico said | May 19th 2010 @ 6:55am | Report comment
You say retaliation…I say vigilantism. Leave it to the referee, otherwise anarchy will flow.
May 19th 2010 @ 7:52am
formeropenside said | May 19th 2010 @ 7:52am | Report comment
Or Jimmy Cowan might stop raking people’s eyes if he knows there is a fair chance he will get a broken jaw and several months on the sidelines out of it.
May 19th 2010 @ 8:38am
Lindommer said | May 19th 2010 @ 8:38am | Report comment
Cowan was very lucky no match official saw his initial infringement. I suppose I can understand why, it was very quick and possibly obscured by another payer, but why hasn’t Jimmy been cited? It was clear enough on the slo-mo replay.
Citing commissioner, get your goggles on.
May 20th 2010 @ 1:37pm
Apelu Tielu said | May 20th 2010 @ 1:37pm | Report comment
Cowan is known for that type of play. He’s a dirty player! We need to TMO in cases like that as the citing Commissioner was probably off for a pee.
May 19th 2010 @ 9:41am
stillmissit said | May 19th 2010 @ 9:41am | Report comment
Arbitro – I see where you are coming from, that would be true if the game had devolved into anarchy in the early days and it didn’t. It built men out of boys and produced lifelong deep friendships between team-mates and opposition players.
It also taught young boys that the stuff they learnt in school about fair play and protecting the weak actually meant something.
May 19th 2010 @ 7:42am
Dingobob said | May 19th 2010 @ 7:42am | Report comment
Saw the same thing in the Reds V Highlanders game when Van Humphries had his eyes raked by Jimmy Cowan. Van gets 10 minutes and Jimmy gets the penalty. What were the so called asistant referee’s looking at?
Also saw the same thing in a club rugby match on the weekend as well with the assistant referee standing next to me and when i asked him about it he just shrugged his shoulders. It makes me wonder exactly where their attention is at times during the game. I thought it was part of their job to keep an eye on the back play?
May 19th 2010 @ 8:02am
Lee said | May 19th 2010 @ 8:02am | Report comment
And it amazes me that Cowen was not at the very least cited for that when Du Plessis got a ban for have a closed fist pushed against Adam Thompsons face in the 2008 Tri Nations game at Dunedin.
There needs to be consistency! I would agree that the retaliator gets punished in the game(only a penalty) BUT that the ref should then put the incident on report and then a citing commisioner should decide who gets a one week suspension or fine for instigating/retaliating.
That way they can decide who started it, who over-reacted and who was the most guitly.
May 19th 2010 @ 9:43am
stillmissit said | May 19th 2010 @ 9:43am | Report comment
Lost all my respect for Jimmy Cowan when I saw that. Nasty, vicious and unprovoked he should get 5 games at least for that.
If it was up to me he would not be playing the game.
May 19th 2010 @ 8:41am
Tock said | May 19th 2010 @ 8:41am | Report comment
Stillmissit ahhhh so do I.
That aside agree 100%. There are certain aspects of rugby that have been changed by stealth over the years and this is one of them. I guarantee that sledging and one upmanship like patting an opponent’s head after they have made a mistake would soon disappear if the perpetrator thought they might get a qick smack in mouth for their trouble.
As far as I’m concerned the game was never meant to attract legions of the faint hearted it was meant to be played by rough boys and enjoyed by rough old men.
Yes I know not quite cricket ah what!
May 21st 2010 @ 3:06am
MattyP said | May 21st 2010 @ 3:06am | Report comment
“the game was never meant to attract legions of the faint hearted”
Quote of the week…
May 19th 2010 @ 9:34am
stillmissit said | May 19th 2010 @ 9:34am | Report comment
Tock – you are from my generation I suspect where the laws were there to ensure the game was played in the ‘right spirit’ and that meant keeping dangerous eye gougers and head kickers out of the game.
I guess we all have stories and we can’t help ourselves. A couple of years after I started playing we were playing against an unnamed (because I cant remember) London team. One of their props was a head kicker of the worst kind and complaints to the ref had not caught this old hand at the short kick to the head. Our prop John Dennard was given the job of ‘fixing the problem’, the next scrum was done and dusted but there is John still locked head to head with his prop, head kicker mate. I looked back to see what was going on and John just unhooked his head and dropped him to the deck. He had been unconscious throughout the whole of the scrum and John had held him up.
I hate the ‘cat act’ of patting guys on the head who make a mistake.
May 19th 2010 @ 11:03am
Tock said | May 19th 2010 @ 11:03am | Report comment
Stillmissit
You are right i am an old hooker/prop of very average ability and I’m sure it does cloud my judgement but I just had to get that out of my system.
Regards’
Tock
PS love the nom de plume
May 19th 2010 @ 1:42pm
Cattledog said | May 19th 2010 @ 1:42pm | Report comment
Stillmissit, you have brought up a controversial, but very relevant point. For so long now, cheap shots on players has seen the guilty survive and the person protecting themselves or a team mate take the fall. It’s come from the ‘third man in’ syndrome where most of the time, the refs, especially at club level, get it wrong. Having sat on a judiciary for many years, 90% of those who provide video / DVD evidence walked free due to the refs getting it wrong. Their human and unfortunately, only some of that snapshot remains in their mind when making a decision.
Clearly, at the professional level, what’s to stop the ref calling time out, going to the TMO and saying ‘what caused the ruckuss’? Then penalise ALL offenders. Obviously, as was the case in the Reds / Highlanders match, the Assistant Ref generally only sees what the ref sees. That’s why it would have been better if Steve Walsh had said ‘tell me what you saw’ rather than ‘this is what I saw, do you have anything different’. Course he won’t, let’s not be controversial! Walsh made it easy for him not to make a decision. Both to the bin would have been a fair outcome. It was a facial, not gouging.
Third man in is when two guys have a stouch and a third enters the fray, supposedly igniting the situation, but often to break it up. This then causes an ‘all in’, apparently. Not so much at the professional level but certainly at club level.
So, use of the TMO should become mandatory when available. I saw in a club game, which was being videoed, the referee stop the match after a nasty incident. He went to the guy videoing the game, asked if he could see the last 30 seconds, went back to the field and got ALL offenders. 2 sent off one to the bin. He was criticised but he got it right. Good on him!
May 19th 2010 @ 3:39pm
stillmissit said | May 19th 2010 @ 3:39pm | Report comment
Cattledog – If we want to get the game back on a sound footing then elimination of dirty players is critical. The current idea of penalising the second or third offender is OK providing they nail, with the biggest nail, the originator of the issue.
The video should be used for this, and at a senior level a review of any fight resulting in a send off, might be a worthwhile use of time to help clean things up. However my experience says that you will catch the one off offender but the perennial offender has a few tricks to hide the act.
May 19th 2010 @ 4:19pm
arbitro storico said | May 19th 2010 @ 4:19pm | Report comment
stillmissit & cattledog – you’re both missing my point. What I’m saying is, don’t retaliate – under any circumstances. If the original infringement is seen by the referee or the AR, there’s no question about who’s at fault. If it’s not been seen by the match officials, perhaps there’s a citing procedure in place. If not – then the original offender has got away with one. John Thornett was one of Australia’s best players – a leader in the best sense – and he didn’t throw a punch, even in retaliation. John Eales responded to French teethmarks by alerting the referee to the fact of them. We’re talking about a rugby match, not the wild west or the jungle. All this talk about who should be penalised the greater is irrelevant if there’s no retaliation. Leave the “eye-for-an-eye” stuff to the fundamentalists.
May 19th 2010 @ 4:35pm
Cattledog said | May 19th 2010 @ 4:35pm | Report comment
AS, I understand where your coming from very well, but I also think your missing one of the fundamental basics of the Australian (and NZ) psych, and that’s to stand up for yourself (protect yourself) and your mates. Probably goes further back than the ANZACs. I am not supporting thuggery in any way shape or form, and I too admire the likes of John Thornet and John Eales. However, the perennial offenders will never be brought to justice as pointed out by Stillmissit, if there isn’t some form of accountability, and this will only occur if you begrudge your eyes being gouged, your nose spread all over your face or your cods heaved into the lower stomach!
Believe me, I don’t miss your point at all, however, there needs to be accountability for actions and this may only occur if Newton’s law is followed!
May 19th 2010 @ 4:21pm
Cattledog said | May 19th 2010 @ 4:21pm | Report comment
SMI, I think we are both comparing oranges with oranges. I’m all for cleaning up the game AND getting the originator. This can often only be done by studying the footage…all very easy in this tecnological age. This is also the only way to get the perennial offender.
Referees guess in a lot of instances as to who the culprits were, or see something, not as serious as other things, and that number / person remains in his head. This person will then get his marching orders. In instances where there’s an altercation requiring action by officials, then use of the TMO should be mandatory. We have the technology, let’s use it for heaven’s sake!
May 20th 2010 @ 10:45am
stillmissit said | May 20th 2010 @ 10:45am | Report comment
Im with you cattledog and maybe this could be started by a player complaint via his coach. In the areas of rugby where there is limited video then the refs responsibility may need to change to getting both the originator and then the respondent.
May 20th 2010 @ 12:24am
Mick Gold Coast QLD said | May 20th 2010 @ 12:24am | Report comment
stillmissit says “Jesus never played rugby”
I recall a church at Manly (Sydney) decades ago had one of those chalkboards out the front where the priest or minister would pen an inspirational or thought provoking message.
He had written “What would YOU do if Jesus Christ came to Manly?”
Some clever League supporter took the opportunity to chalk an answer on the board “Move Fulton to the wing!”
May 20th 2010 @ 10:47am
stillmissit said | May 20th 2010 @ 10:47am | Report comment
Mick – love the line but it does suppose that Jesus is a half back and looking at all the Christian pictures of him he looks like a winger with moves like an angel??????
May 20th 2010 @ 9:27pm
Damo said | May 20th 2010 @ 9:27pm | Report comment
Sorry Mick the way I heard the story of Jesus coming to Manly back then It was “put him in the centres and move Bozo out to the wing”
May 21st 2010 @ 5:43pm
Mick Gold Coast QLD said | May 21st 2010 @ 5:43pm | Report comment
On reflection, Damo, I think your recollection is accurate.
I suspect my memory may have been depleted by the damage inflicted by those undisciplined retaliators, who would never had done it to me if only I had “arbitro storico” QC (above) lying around in the ruck with me to properly represent my interests in the “anarchical wild west” of the front row in the ’60s and ’70s.
“don’t retaliate – under any circumstances” opines “arbitro”, which is in direct conflict with the my coach’s half time instructions from time to time to “sort that bloke out, we don’t want him running at us any more”. The most unusual occassion was when he told me to give our dozy big centre, “Lumpy”, a jab if I could, to get the lazy barsteward properly fired up and doing his job better.