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On Sunday, around 12.33 am, an email was sent to me and dozens of other rugby writers on SANZAR’s mailing list. The headline read “Ed O’Donoghue Red Card Offence”.
Here is the full text of the email:
Player: Ed O’Donoghue. Team: Reds. Position: Lock. Date of the Incident: 17/05/2014. Nature of Offence: 10.4 (m) Acts contrary to good sportsmanship. Elapsed time in match when offence occurred: 79th minute.
Ed O’Donoghue of the Reds received a red card for foul play during a Super Rugby match at the weekend. O’Donoghue is alleged to have contravened Law 10.4.(m) Acts contrary to good sportsmanship. The incident occurred during a match between the Reds and the Rebels at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Saturday 17 May 2014. The referee for the match, Steve Walsh, issued a red card for the incident which occurred in the 79th minute.
The case is to be considered in the first instance by SANZAR’s Duty Judicial Officer Nicholas Davidson QC. All SANZAR disciplinary matters are in the first instance referred to a Duty Judicial Officer hearing to provide the option of expediting the judicial process. For a matter to be dispensed with at this hearing, the person appearing must plead guilty and accept the penalty offered by the DJO.
Reading this email, I got the uneasy feeling that SANZAR was trying to force O’Donoghue into accepting some sort of stiffish penalty for unsportsmanlike behaviour, rather than facing an eye-gouging charge which might be difficult to prove as the evidence. For it seemed to me, the Reds and other journalists such as Wayne Smith of The Australian that there was no eye-gouging involved in the tussle on the ground between Scott Higginbotham and O’Donoghue.
SANZAR generally states the particulars of the alleged offence that is to be reviewed. Why wasn’t eye-gouging specifically mentioned in the charge?
The Nature of the Offence law (10. 4) against Jean Deysel, for instance, was specified as: “Stamping or tramping. A player must not stamp or trample an opponent.”
The Nature of the Offence law (10.4) against James Slipper was: “Lifting a player from the ground and dropping or driving that player into the ground …”
The Nature of the Offence law (10.4) against Chris King was: “Punching or striking …”
Why was the nature of the offence against O’Donoghue so generalised? This seemed to be at odds with the usual citing practice. Moreover, on the generalised details provided in the O’Donoghue matter, the charge could equally be applied to Higginbotham.
Indeed, when the Rebels captain made his way back to referee Steve Walsh for a briefing, after the TMO, had badgered (there is no other word) Walsh to take a decision he clearly resented taking, Higginbotham was expecting to be the culprit who was to be punished.
So why wasn’t Higginbotham charged with O’Donoghue?
Around 8.00pm on Monday we got the answer to these questions in an email from SANZAR headed: Ed O’Donoghe Hearing Outcome
A SANZAR Judicial Hearing had found O’Donoghue ‘not guilty’ of contravening Law 10.4. No further sanction is to be imposed on the player and the red card has been removed from his record.
My reading of what happened very much corresponds to Wayne Smith’s detailed article in The Australian. And it corresponds with the findings of Jannie Lubbe SC as the Judicial Hearing Chairman.
There was a tussle on the ground between O’Donoghue and Higginbotham. Both players seemed to be determined to wring the neck off their opponent. O’Donoghue managed to turn himself on top of Higginbotham and placed his spread hand across the Rebels captain’s face. Higginbotham clamped his arms around O’Donoghue’s neck.
It was noticeable that when Higginbotham got up, there was no rubbing of his eyes or any indication that his eyes had been gouged. Mr Lubbe SC said his findings ‘indicated that no damage had been inflicted upon Mr Higginbotham and, furthermore, the player stated that he had made no complaint to the referee.’
This is an important point because if eyes have been gouged it is almost impossible not to show it. Again, Mr Lubbe SC asserted that ‘medical evidence supplied by the Rebels…indicated no damage inflicted on Mr Higginbotham.’
After Steve Walsh who was very close to the tussle awarded a penalty to the Reds against Sean McMahon of the Rebels for coming into the ruck illegally, the TMO Steve Lescinski started to get into his ear. Walsh said something to the effect of ‘I’ve got it’ and made it clear to the TMO that the matter was under control, as far as he was concerned.
Mike Harris took the penalty for the Reds and banged the ball towards the Rebels 22m mark. Remember the score at this time was 27 – 27 and the place where the tussle took place was in the Reds half and virtually in the middle of the field. We were looking at the last play of the match with the Reds having a chance to win (if Walsh’s decision stood up) and the Rebels virtually certain to win if the TMO got his way.
The Reds hooker Saia Faingaa was about to throw the ball into the attacking lineout, when Walsh stopped him.
Images of the incident were played on the Big Screen. It was clear that O’Donoghue had his hands all over Higginbotham’s face. But it was equally clear that no eye-gouging was involved. That was what the crowd, the TV audience and Walsh saw on the Big Screen. But the TMO was insistent that eye-gouging had taken place.
Wayne Smith makes an excellent point when he notes out that Walsh made Lescinski officially recommend that O’Donoghue be red-carded and that the penalty be reversed.
The point here is that Walsh was really saying to Lescinski that this is your decision, not mine, and I am washing my hands of the matter.
In my opinion, this represented a failure of nerve and practice on Walsh’s part, good referee though he is. It was, too, again in my opinion, a dereliction of his duties as a referee. I have noticed, for instance, that strong referees often tell the TMO that they have seen enough and are in a position to make a ruling on a matter that was sent tup o the TMO to get the videos scrutinised.
The laws of rugby state that the referee is the final arbiter of fact on a rugby field. The referee, not the TMO. This is why the referee, not the TMO, has to enunciate the decision to the players. The TMO is there to help the referee get matters of fact right.
Walsh clearly did not agree with the TMO. He should have told the TMO to stop talking about the incident and what he thought he saw. He should have allowed play to go in the Rebels territory. And if SANZAR wanted to take the matter further, they could. But after the game.
A stronger referee than Walsh would have done this. Walsh tried to do this, admittedly. But he let himself be over-ridden on an incident he saw up close and then on the big screen and which he felt did not deserve a sanction to either of the players. Moreover, the decision in favour of not penalising/red carding O’Donoghue was a relatively easy one to make.
I don’t know where SANZAR gets its TMOs from or what training it puts them through. But since their introduction there have been innumerable occasions when they have misinterpreted the video evidence or where they have been in ignorance of the laws of the game.
This sort of practice should be unacceptable. It is understandable that referees make mistakes from time to time. The TMO system is there to help cut down on these inevitable mistakes. But when the TMOs get things wrong, after seeing the evidence in slow-motion, and not in confusion of real-life time like the referees, SANZAR has a problem on its hands.
The TMO system is supposed to take the controversy out of difficult decisions. It should not be the source of controversy following its decisions.
This was one occasion, an obvious one at that, when a referee needed to tell an officious TMO to shut up. It needs to happen more often.