Official Rugby Thread

[ripper868]

England doing surprisingly well here - I've been distracted so not watching closely, but fully expected Ireland to be 20 ahead by the hour mark.

Stewards red is a red by the law, but geeze it was harsh.

 

[Brook's side]

Didn't think it was harsh at all personally. Stone cold red card.

OK he's not sat down with a pen and paper before the game and drawn up a plan of how he's going to elbow the other full back in the face, but that was enough time for it to be a conscious decision to lead with the arm, albeit a split second one. He had more time than many do going into contact with a ball carrier who get red cards.

It's the 'we know the "rugby incident" rule' brigade that are causing the confusion.

Blatant elbow to the head for me.

 

[andruid]

Ireland peaking too soon again, or will they carry this form into the World Cup?

 

[Uppercut]

Didn't think it was harsh at all personally. Stone cold red card.

OK he's not sat down with a pen and paper before the game and drawn up a plan of how he's going to elbow the other full back in the face, but that was enough time for it to be a conscious decision to lead with the arm, albeit a split second one. He had more time than many do going into contact with a ball carrier who get red cards.

It's the 'we know the "rugby incident" rule' brigade that are causing the confusion.

Blatant elbow to the head for me.

Yeah you just have sympathy with him because it's so instinctive, and current players have overwhelmingly developed their instincts under a different set of rules. It doesn't mean there's any question that it should be a red card. It's a teething pain for the sport while it adjusts to modern levels of risk tolerance.

 

[Uppercut]

I think back to the England vs. Scotland game, where England dominated up front and in the kicking game but Scotland won by scoring a few brilliant tries. My rugby brain assumes that dominating up front is sustainable, and scoring brilliant tries is not, so I expected England to be better than Scotland for the rest of the 6N. But obviously that's not what happened, and the sport might just have changed. If rugby is really about quality in the passing game now, I don't know how much credit we should give England for being "competitive" in a game like yesterday's.

 

[Ali TT]

I'm all for action to stop the dangerous play in rugby and not really a fan of "back in my day, got to let the players play" blah blah from the commentariat. However, rugby games are ruined by red cards, especially in the first half, as it's high on impossible for the team without the player to win. Rugby should really consider ejecting that individual player from the game as happens in American sports but allowing the team to continue to field an XV, perhaps after a sinbin period.

 

[Furball]

I'm all for action to stop the dangerous play in rugby and not really a fan of "back in my day, got to let the players play" blah blah from the commentariat. However, rugby games are ruined by red cards, especially in the first half, as it's high on impossible for the team without the player to win. Rugby should really consider ejecting that individual player from the game as happens in American sports but allowing the team to continue to field an XV, perhaps after a sinbin period.

Garbage take.

 

[Ali TT]

Garbage take.

Constructive comment from someone I've never interacted with on here. Nice to come across you.

 

[Molehill]

Didn't think it was harsh at all personally. Stone cold red card.

OK he's not sat down with a pen and paper before the game and drawn up a plan of how he's going to elbow the other full back in the face, but that was enough time for it to be a conscious decision to lead with the arm, albeit a split second one. He had more time than many do going into contact with a ball carrier who get red cards.

It's the 'we know the "rugby incident" rule' brigade that are causing the confusion.

Blatant elbow to the head for me.

Yes it's an elbow to the head, but there is no intent. Rugby has got itself into a mess by giving red cards to those which should be yellow. I'm not even sure this should be a yellow. It's a knock on, Keenan is only going for the ball to prevent any advantage being given to England. He feigns to kick it and then picks it up. As a result of that feign, Steward no longer thinks a tackle is required and goes to pull out knowing it will come back for the knock on. Obviously, we know what happened next. How that is not mitigating circumstances shows a complete lack of understanding by Peyper (he has previous). He was abysmal all game, the only penalties he gave to England were at the scrums where frankly it seemed Ireland had the upper hand. Not sure why a substandard S African was given the final game of the Tournament.

Anyway, I'm sure Ireland would've won anyway, but it spoilt a half decent contest and rugby needs to sort itself out because this is happening way too often. It's one thing protecting players, but there needs to be a way of not ruining games. We've already seen one World Cup Final turned on a controversial red card, the next World Cup could be the same.

As for the Word Cup, starting to feel Ireland may have been found out. An average England team caused them problems, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they continue their run of never having won a knockout game. NZ or France to beat them and France to win the whole thing.

 

[Brook's side]

Yes it's an elbow to the head, but there is no intent. Rugby has got itself into a mess by giving red cards to those which should be yellow. I'm not even sure this should be a yellow. It's a knock on, Keenan is only going for the ball to prevent any advantage being given to England. He feigns to kick it and then picks it up. As a result of that feign, Steward no longer thinks a tackle is required and goes to pull out knowing it will come back for the knock on.

Sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but people are talking so much nonsense about this incident.

* There was no knock on (there was a pass which went forward)
* Keenan is going for the ball because the whistle hasn't gone. The pass looks forward but there's no way of knowing whether it will be called forward and Keenan's quite right to carry on playing.
* Keenan does NOT feign to kick the ball or indicate in any way that he is going to kick the ball
* Kennan does not (as others not you have said) stoop low into the tackle (he had just picked the ball up from the loose pass and at the point of impact was on his way into an upright position)

What actually happens is:

* the game is continuing in the immediate aftermath of a pass which looks to have been forward.
* At the moment of impact every other player is still playing as if there's no forward pass.
* Except that is for Steward who inexplicably stops playing, pulls out of the tackle, turns his body 90 degrees and lifts his elbow into the oncoming player's head.

It's as clear a red card under the new rules as you'll ever see.

Edit: You don't need intent with this rule. That's the whole point of it. But in fact to me there probably is intent, albeit based on a split second decision. I don't believe that it's a reflex action to lift your elbow to protect yourself. It's a footballer's type foul where they do something pointlessly niggly just for the sake of trying to hurt the other player a little bit and 'put yourself about'. That's my take, but regardless of whether I'm right on that Id say it's a 'clear and obvious' (in VAR parlons) red card.

 

[social]

I'm all for action to stop the dangerous play in rugby and not really a fan of "back in my day, got to let the players play" blah blah from the commentariat. However, rugby games are ruined by red cards, especially in the first half, as it's high on impossible for the team without the player to win. Rugby should really consider ejecting that individual player from the game as happens in American sports but allowing the team to continue to field an XV, perhaps after a sinbin period.

Agreed

It’s fine for rugby to draw a line in the sand wrt to contact with the head but there needs to be a balance between protecting the players, maintaining the general premise of it being a heavy contact sport and keeping games somewhat competitive

Red = 20 plus the carded player can’t return is still a massive penalty

Good luck getting rugby administrators to change though as they still consider legalised obstruction (I.e. a rolling maul) to be good viewing

 

[Spark]

At some point this is probably going to get to the point where rugby as it currently exists is simply incompatible with modern safety standards. I just don't see how these two can be reconciled as it currently stands.

 

[Molehill]

Sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but people are talking so much nonsense about this incident.

* There was no knock on (there was a pass which went forward)
* Keenan is going for the ball because the whistle hasn't gone. The pass looks forward but there's no way of knowing whether it will be called forward and Keenan's quite right to carry on playing.
* Keenan does NOT feign to kick the ball or indicate in any way that he is going to kick the ball
* Kennan does not (as others not you have said) stoop low into the tackle (he had just picked the ball up from the loose pass and at the point of impact was on his way into an upright position)

What actually happens is:

* the game is continuing in the immediate aftermath of a pass which looks to have been forward.
* At the moment of impact every other player is still playing as if there's no forward pass.
* Except that is for Steward who inexplicably stops playing, pulls out of the tackle, turns his body 90 degrees and lifts his elbow into the oncoming player's head.

It's as clear a red card under the new rules as you'll ever see.

Well you're right there. ?

Clearly we won't agree on this. The only person I've really seen justifying the red card was BoD and I suspect he'd be talking very differently were it an Irish guy being sent off.

The bigger issue is that rugby needs to look at its rules, for this to even be considered as a red card needs looking at. Too many games are becoming switch offs due to these rules.

 

[Molehill]

At some point this is probably going to get to the point where rugby as it currently exists is simply incompatible with modern safety standards. I just don't see how these two can be reconciled as it currently stands.

Agreed, so many ex players are now looking to sue various Rugby Federations for injuries that I guess they don't have a choice.

 

[Brook's side]

Well you're right there. ?

Dude, it wasn't me who invented the knock on or the feigned kick!

 

[Brook's side]

Agreed, so many ex players are now looking to sue various Rugby Federations for injuries that I guess they don't have a choice.

This is harsh. The people looking to sure have got dementia from playing rugby. Steve Thompson has said he doesn't even know the name of his children.

 

[social]

At some point this is probably going to get to the point where rugby as it currently exists is simply incompatible with modern safety standards. I just don't see how these two can be reconciled as it currently stands.

On life support here but game is controlled by NH so nothing will change

 

[Brook's side]

On life support here but game is controlled by NH so nothing will change

Australia's problems with attracting people to rugby union significantly predates the rule changes regarding head contact unfortunately.

 

[Molehill]

Dude, it wasn't me who invented the knock on or the feigned kick!

It was Jonny Wilkinson who first said it, he kind of understands the game.

Knock on/forward pass whatever, it went forward and everybody knew it had. It wasn't like nobody knew it wasn't going to get called back.

This is harsh. The people looking to sure have got dementia from playing rugby. Steve Thompson has said he doesn't even know the name of his children.

Didn't mean for it to sound harsh, just adding some perspective to the situation. I'm no medical expert, but I'd guess that Thompson's dementia was more repetitive scrum related rather than one off hits. If anything, the scrum seems an even more competitive battlefield now where front rows have bulked up yet further and are always looking to win penalties. I'm amazed that nothing has ever been done about this, especially as it is often a time wasting borefest too.

 

[social]

Australia's problems with attracting people to rugby union significantly predates the rule changes regarding head contact unfortunately.

Injury risks for players is a major deterrent here

Just ask Mrs Social!

The youngsters themselves aren’t that fussed about playing it either which is a bigger worry