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Silly red cards a blight on rugby

Roar Guru
25th March, 2017
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The Reds may have lost, but they went down entertainingly. (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
Roar Guru
25th March, 2017
17
1262 Reads

In the days before rampant litigation and lawfare, there was a bizarre concept, unfamiliar to many these days, called personal responsibility.

This personal responsibility, now a strange, foreign idea, was that people could make decisions and be exposed to the risk, and, (god-forbid) the consequences of their actions.

Sadly, personal responsibility no longer exists in our society, and in rugby. Surely, when any rugby player takes the field, they accept the fact that they may be injured, they may break their bones, or they might even die.

Everyone seems to understand this, except for World Rugby, who this year changed the laws around high tackles.

As of 2017, any high tackle is an automatic yellow card, unless a tackler ‘slips’ into the tackle. That means that some of the more reckless tackles are now classified as red cards. Really?

Yes, really. Quade Cooper was sent off over the weekend for a swinging arm that should have been a penalty at best.

Reds Super Rugby player Quade Cooper

World Rugby justifies these changes as important for the safety of players. But how much damage does a high tackle really do? The medical evidence suggests that lots of concussions cause issues for players. This ignores that some players get more concussed than others, concussions are quite rare from high tackles, but most importantly, it ignores a crucial fact:

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When rugby players play, they accept the fact they might have injuries that cause issues for them later in life. If they don’t accept this, they stop playing.

And that is exactly what some rugby players do: stop. Elton Flatley, whom retired in 2006, was particularly prone to getting concussed, more so than any other player. So he stopped playing!

The second and more important fact to consider is that red cards are not necessarily a strong deterrent – particularly in cases of accidents. Tackling is a tricky business, and getting your position right is difficult. There are no players that deliberately look to swing their arm in the professional game.

So why is there a red card for an accident? A red card should be based off an intent to injure or hurt, not an accident. Accidents will keep happening, red card or not.

A red card only works as the glorious deterrent it is said to when players can actually cease and desist their activities. Well I’m sorry to be the one to explain it to World Rugby, but it’s hard to stop doing something that happens by accident!

It doesn’t help that players who’ve made the unfortunate error of committing their offense in (what I like to call) the People’s Republic of the SARU are then given obscene bans for their petty crimes. Quade Cooper has since been given a three-game suspension.

It’s safe to say that had it been a South African player nowhere near a strong a suspension would have been given, but that is a topic for another time (don’t miss my next article where I will analyse the South African judiciary and the biases involved).

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World Rugby should stop interfering with the reality that rugby is a contact sport where people will get hurt. Sure, minimising injuries is good, but how about some sensible policies that don’t spoil the game.

Rescind the red card directive and do something productive, like getting rid of Romain Poite and Jerome Garces from refereeing the Lions series.

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