TALKING POINT: Kiwi red card trial must become universal

The French did much bleating over what they perceived as referee Ben O’Keefe’s role in their team’s demise at the hands of the Springboks in last year’s World Cup quarterfinal and maybe the rugby gods have decided to give them some payback.

In two of the three games that France have played since the final whistle sounded on their failed attempt to win their own World Cup, they’ve been gifted results by what can only be described as highly flawed officiating.

They should have lost to Scotland to the last move try that the TMO ruled against when it should have been clear to all watching the replays that the ball had been grounded beyond the French tryline.

And Italy were right to complain after their draw with France this past Sunday that their attempted winning penalty kick should have been retaken. Some of the French players moved towards the ball when it was blown over, something that would have been allowable if it were a conversion, but not when it is a penalty.

So France still have just the one defeat on their record in this edition of the Guinness Six Nations, with the Scotland game reflected as a win while the Italy game will go down as a draw. They should both have been losses, which would have left France at the bottom of the log with three defeats in three games.

So who says officiating mistakes don’t have far reaching ramifications, just as France claimed was the case after that game played on 15 October last year? Scotland should be three from three now, and if that was the case, the Six Nations would have a very different look to it. As it stands, Ireland are dominating, but Scotland should be up with them and challenging for what for them would be a rare Grand Slam and Championship title.

IRELAND ARE ON A DIFFERENT LEVEL

Ireland have looked like they are on a different planet, with one overseas writer hitting the nail on the head when he said there are two tiers in the Championship, Ireland in the top tier and then the other teams in the lower tier. Their form is both a warning to the Springboks, who host them on South African soil in a two test series in July, and something that should be welcomed in that the Irish are becoming talkative again and that will add interest to the series.

I’ve read a few times a glib acceptance that while Ireland failed to win the World Cup, they are proving that they are the best team on the planet. Well, let’s put that to the test in July - if they can beat South Africa on their own soil, with one of those games at altitude in Pretoria, then there will be no argument. They’d have followed up a series win in New Zealand two years ago with one in South Africa.

At the same time though, you have to question the level of the other Six Nations teams. England flattered only to deceive in the first quarter of their game against Scotland at Murrayfield, where the Scots underlined again just what a tough group South Africa found themselves in at last year’s World Cup. England made the semifinals, where they nearly beat the Boks, but they wouldn’t have come close if it were not for their favourable draw.

Wales are in a clear rebuilding phase under Warren Gatland. They’ve shown signs of promise in patches, but they have created a new record by going scoreless in one half of all three games they’ve played thus far. Italy are arguably making good progress, and it may not be coincidental that the nations that play in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship are the ones that have played the most positive rugby.

England are unable to convert the panache we see from some of their teams in the Premiership, which is effectively a domestic competition, but Ireland clearly benefit from having the core of their team playing for Leinster - although Connacht’s Bundee Aki might be their most important player - and ditto Italy (Benetton) and Scotland (Glasgow).

FRANCE FEELING HANGOVER OF BOK DEFEAT

France’s hangover from their early exit from the RWC they hosted has been massive. Yes, Antoine Dupont is away playing Sevens so he can represent France at the Olympics, a decision which might itself have been directed by the failure to win rugby’s Holy Grail last October.

They started out by being comprehensively outplayed by Ireland, a game that was played at one of their favourite grounds, the Stade Velodrome in Marseille, and they’ve been lucky against Scotland and Italy. There have been periods when they’ve shown signs of being the France team that we saw before they lost to the Boks, but they’ve been all too brief.

Adding to their woes has been their discipline. In two of the three games they have had to play more than half of it with 14 men. Against Ireland the South African born lock Paul Willemse was dispatched after picking up two yellow cards for high tackles, while Jonathan Danty was off for the entire second half against Italy.

The momentum was already strongly against France when Willemse was sent off against Ireland, but the red card did have a big impact in their game against Italy and they might feel happy with the draw all things considered.

THE RED CARD ASTERISK IS NOT A GOOD THING FOR RUGBY

The asterisk that will sit in many people’s minds though next to those losses, the one that signifies the team was hampered by a red card, is as problematic though as the one there should really be next to the ‘W’ they got from the Scotland game and the ‘D’ they got from Italy.

Willemse was clumsy and many would say he got what was coming to him when he saw red but as we saw in the World Cup final, when All Black skipper Sam Cane was red carded but his opposite number Siya Kolisi just saw yellow for what biased Kiwi and anti-South African neutrals might have seen as exactly the same thing (it wasn’t, but that was the argument), there’s a lot of grey area.

Red cards have become too prevalent in modern rugby and it is ruining the sport. Actually, the word ‘become’ maybe doesn’t even fit, for it has been the case for a long time now. What to do about it is the question.

In my view, having read quite a bit of literature on the subject of concussion, the only real answer to that problem is to play less rugby. Expecting players to play 10 months of a year, and when you play of course you have to train, and for there not to be physiological (as well as welfare) repercussions is Cloud Cuckooland thinking. Which is the expression I would use to describe the move to play the Currie Cup during what should now be the South African off-season.

ADJUSTMENT REQUIRED TO WHAT RED CARD MEANS

But regardless of what other adjustments might need to be made, the high tackle red cards and other red cards that some might view as being sanctions for technical indiscretions rather than acts of malicious intent, are likely to stay. What should be adjusted is what a red card means. New Zealand have been trialling what they call the 20 minute red card in Super Rugby and other professional competitions, and have now extended that to community rugby.

In South Africa, as rugby was coming out of Covid a few years back, we did the same. From memory, there was some bleating from supporters of teams that didn’t understand why players who had been red carded were replaced after 20 minutes. Unfortunately, for many rugby has become a game that is as much about having opposition players removed from the fray so your team has an advantage in numbers as it is about getting the ball down beyond the white line.

That’s not good for the sport, and you just have to look back to the way the Kane red card hung over the aftermath of the last World Cup final to understand why I say that. My own line, if I was allowed to be rugby’s first dictator and became responsible for all decisions and law changes, would be to stick with a 10 minute period off the field for a red carded player but then he gets replaced from the bench.

The bench has become so important in modern rugby that the red cards would still be a strong deterrent, not least for the erring player who naturally should want to remain part of the match. But the 20 minute red card, which effectively means a red carded player can be replaced after 20 minutes, is the next best thing. Why hasn’t what New Zealand have been trialling already become universal practice?