The latest incident which happened today. We have Emmanuel Tshituka, who makes an incredible and storming run. Racing 92’s Fullback then attempts to tackle him upright, whichs leads to Tshituka running completely over him him and pushing him off his feet 2 meters away from him, to where his head hits the ground. It was a massive fend from Tshituka. At first there was no penalty, but after the replay, the ref (Karl Dickson), goes to the TMO (Dean Richards), and they check it in slow motion. Within a few minutes they make it sound like Tshituka’s goal was to strike the defender’s neck and that is wasn’t a normal “fend” as his forearm was “away” from his body, which is not true. The defender made a poor tackle upright which led to Tshituka’s forearm making contact with the neck. It was more of a “Push” than a “Strike. So within 2 minutes, they decide on a red card. This was about 20 minutes into the game, where the Lions had to play with 14 men for 60 minutes. Then later in the same game, Racing 92 recovers a kick, but their 11’s foot touches the ground, this then leads to a try. But the Lions captain (Marius Louw) tells the ref the player was out they should check it. The ref initially ignores him, and allows the conversion kick to take place. The kick is over and as they walk for the kickoff. The Lions captain asks him again to check it. The ref then checks it, then it turns out the Lions captain was right and the player was out. He then cancels the try, and even after the Lions captain clearly was right, he tells the captain that he should let him and his TMO do their jobs, and then threatens to penalize the captain if he questions him again. This is frustrating because he tells the Lions captain to allow him(The ref) and his TMO to do their jobs, literally after the Lions captains showed how they were incapable of not doing their jobs. Then after those incidents, I show 2 similar incidents from a few weeks earlier in the 6 Nations game. One was in the Wales vs Italy game, where Karl Dickson was the AR, in that game I actually praised him because something similar happened, and the ref wanted to give a red card. Then Karl came in and told the ref it shouldn’t be a red card, as it was more of a “push” than “strike”. Yet in this Lions game, he came to a completely different outcome. The other game was where he was not involved, but it was Scotland vs France, where a player (Antoine Dupont) gets “striked” on the neck from a fend off, yet that incident was not even penalized. So we have 3 different incidents that are exactly the same. But we get 3 different outcomes.
As the title says: Red Card Roulette: The Unpredictability of Rugby Refereeing
You never know what you’re going to get, every single week the refs make their own laws and it’s impossible to adapt to it
26 Comments
Poor tackle technique.
Rules to Keep players safe. Any Forceful contact to head . It will lead to yellow or red card. Player lead with Arm to players Chin and neck with speed and Force . It's a Red card . Rules are rules .
Tas perhaps you need one long video to show to world rugby, I am in Northern Ireland I will take it personally to them.
Don't cry or try to be a ref and show us how the best ref you are and you'll be…
You can’t lead with the fore arm… ok.
But for f@&ks sake, if a tackler is going to stand tall to tackle he should be the first to be red carded for creating the dangerous head to head situation.
I agree with the red as leading with a forearm is wrong. Yes the tackler should have dipped but he bottled it. But taking a forearm to the head is wrong
I've been saying this alot, it also depends how you react to that happening. Som teams/players milk it to get a harsher penalising than others. The all blacks do it very well. I'm a South African so I'd like the springboks to do this as well but I feel we just want to play and get the game going.
So the one with ball in hand are not allowed to defend the ball anymore nd this tackler was wrong to try tackle so high
3 week ban apparently Tsutukha struck the opposition player…….
sweet Fanny Adam wrong with that.
Consistency is all we need, and I think we all need to see advice to referees so they can be held to account if they're not following it. Also the strategy should be not to award a red card unless there is CLEAR evidence of FOUL play ie intent or recklessness. Not an accident.
Really struggling to watch rugby, all about the ref, they are doing their best to alienate the fans. Trying to get rid of head contact is like asking boxer to only punch bellow the head. If rugby players don't want to take the risk of concussion don't play rugby .
Lions racing reff had a very poor day at the office, did 15 get HIA after he got bounced/handerd off either way, not a card for ET
I’m always fascinated about South Africans complaining about applying the law. It is known that you can’t go to contact with a leading forearm, then don’t cry if you still do it and get sanctionned
Forearm smash to the head is a red card. Only the sofa jockey would think otherwise.
Fend is an open palm hand not a clenched fist and a raised forearm
The tackle technique is bad yes, however you're not allowed to fend with the forearm like that. Basically smacked the other player in the head with his elbow, Red card is correct.
the worst part on the red is how the awful biased french commentators make it sound like it is such an obvious decision
The absolute state of rugby. None of them should even be a penalty. What a ridiculous sport this has become.
Pathetic. Rules. Interpretation. Refereeing. Modern rugby.
Just a bump off. His arm was tucked against his body. Poor tackle.
Shocking.
No consistency between north and southern hemisphere and even between URC, Top14 and Premiership. So frustrating.
This wc allready has a winner decided by wr and who the referees will be in sertain matches and who's gona win,and then rugby is killed…destroyed gone🤷♂️
The rules are slowly turning into soccor rules
I just took a snip at 18:42, there is perhaps a 2 inch gap between his arm and the head of the Racing 92 player, and there is a significant gap between his forearm and his body probably 8 or 10 inches i would guess, and his upper arm is pointing forward at perhaps 10 degrees south of parallel to the ground, also significant gap to his body. So it clearly is correct that his arm was not tucked. He actually accelerates the arm forward as he enters contact and he hits him directly in the head. Seems fine red card to me. Bruno's one was borderline, i think he was lucky to get away with it, it is perhaps slightly less bad as while he leads with the arm, perhaps not all the force is through the neck, some in the chest. Dickson's comment points out 'if you see it as a strike, or if you see it as a fend'. It is very difficult and this is why there may or may not be inconsistency. The system they are trialling of 10 minutes yellow while TMO reviews to decide if red sounds excellent. But in this situation it is still not clear if 10 minutes would help, there is definitely however much you try not to a subjective element. There are many, many variables but only 4 possible outcomes, no penalty, penalty, yellow or red. Schoeman's should definitely be reviewed, but it does look significantly different to me, he appears to try and push Dupont away and then his arm rides up and hits him in the neck, the footage is a bit grainy so hard to tell, but he definitely got away with one. So in conclusion i would say 1 defo correct, 1 arguable but okay, one not great. Sounds about what one can expect in life.
As to Dickson and the try that never was. I just watched the replay with SA commentary. You can hear Dickson talking to the TMO as they are taking the kick, but you can't make out what he is saying at 37:54 Dickson is still standing on his own with his arm up just inside the 22, as the kick goes over. with the whole Lions team under the post. If Louw jogged over to him he perhaps reached him at 37:58 and then asking him to check it. We don't hear any more conversation with the TMO until 38:18, and by 38:24 Dickson is repeating what he has been told, that it was in touch. It is not possible for Louw, to speak to Dickson explains he wants it checked, Dickson to agree, then request the TMO to check, the TMO to look at it and make his mind up and then tell Dickson in a maximum of 20 seconds. So it was clearly already being checked before the kick It is then determined that he was out. Dickson then talks to Louw in a respectful way, and says that he can ask as a captain and that it will be checked in the background, but what i need you to do though.. i will penalise you but it is not in the values of the game. It seems obvious to me that what has happened, is that Louw has been over aggressive shall we say in pursuing Dickson in his questioning, or perhaps repeatedly insisting that he was out. Now as I haven't heard the conversation i can't say if Louw did overstep the mark . However it seems clear to me that Dickson is not saying i will penalise you if you ask me again, he is talking about penalising him for the manner in which he is asking / how he is talking to the referee. That seems perfectly reasonable. Now you may have access to a different feed which highlights the conversation in more detail, although if you do it seems odd to me that you haven't put it in the video. So in conclusion Dickson and the TMO did do their job, they got the right decision, and he respectfully asked Louw to speak to him appropriately or he would penalise him. Seems fine to me.