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Rugby hemispheres set on collision course over the 20-minute red card

There is little argument that red cards can ruin games. So too that head injuries can ruin lives

New Zealand's Angus Ta'avao receives treatment before being sent off by referee Jaco Peyper for a dangerous tackle on Ireland's Garry Ringrose during the second Test in Dunedin. Photograph: Phil Walter/Getty Images

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Johnny Watterson
Fri Jul 29 2022 - 06:00

Rugby’s culture wars drew a clear line in the sand this week. The conflict between rugby social groups, the struggle for dominance of their values, beliefs, and practices came into sharp focus playing out on traditional and social media.

In Ireland, rugby’s governing body the IRFU became aware that they were facing significant legal challenges with claims from former players alleging they suffered serious brain injuries during their playing careers.

The legal action will run alongside a British case taken by Rylands Law on behalf of a group of professional and semi-professional players against World Rugby, the English Rugby Football Union (RFU), and the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU). Rylands represents more than 185 rugby union players aged in their 30s, 40s and 50s.

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Serious concussion, brain injury and early onset of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a frightening business. Notwithstanding that prop Carl ‘I was a commodity’ Hayman was All Black number 1,000 and is one of the figures involved in taking the case in the UK, the two hemispheres are at odds with each other’s sense of priorities and sensibilities around safety and deterrence.

While the north was discussing life-changing injuries, personal cost and the possible financial fallout for the game, the south and Sanzaar decided to reintroduce the trailing of the 20-minute red card law during the Rugby Championship. That allows the player, who causes a concussive head injury and permanently forces an opponent out of the match, to be sent off and have another player replace him after 20 minutes rather than play the remainder of the match with 14 players.

The ruling has so far been rejected by World Rugby for a global trial.

In practice, it means prop Angus Ta’avao, red-carded for his high tackle that took Garry Ringrose out of the second Test match against New Zealand, could have been replaced after 20 minutes with another prop. It means that the horror tackle of Bismarck du Plessis on Munster’s Alex Kendellen would be a 20-minute team sanction before another version of Du Plessis arrived on the pitch.

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In one comment that cut close to the bone, an online South African strategist’s hot take on the 20-minute red card was to think like a winner and weaponise the watered-down rule. Call it extreme coaching.

“We should make more Bakkies Botha’s,” he suggested. “Enforcers or rather call them SNYPERS. Play [lock] Bakkies at 10 for the first 20 minutes. He gets rid of [outhalf Beauden] Barrett. Send Bismarck [prop du Plessis] in his place for another 10, he gets rid of Muanga [outhalf Richie Mo’unga]. The other 50 minutes, we play [outhalf Handre] Pollard or [outhalf Elton] Jantjies. Thank you.”

The 20-minute red card is popular among Sanzaar nations, but has little support among the European unions, who do not believe it provides a strong enough deterrent, especially with the proliferation of holding up players, where there is higher risk reward. The reckless tackle on Ringrose was a case in point.

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The question is whether the Sanzaar nations truly believe the ‘integrity’ of the game is at stake or is there another motive. The insistence that 15 players against 15 is one of rugby’s magical and unbreakable commandments appears to have been plucked out of thin air.

Alternatively, they may agree with Hayman’s nihilistic view of what being a top professional international player really means. Last month he outlined that to the Guardian.

“Once you accept your body’s screwed and you have no respect for it, you become an awesome player,” he said. That might resonate with some of the current crop. So, what of a 20-minute team deterrent for an act of thuggery that could end an opponent’s career.

“As a group, we firmly believe the integrity of international matches is very important and that wherever possible matches must be a contest of 15 versus 15″ said Sanzaar boss Brendan Morris. He added that Sanzaar collectively felt the 20-minute red card was a significant deterrent to deliberate acts of foul play while not ruining the game’s spectacle.

But what a gorgeous sense of timing as Richard Boardman over in London at Rylands Law and Manus McClafferty up in Capel Street in Dublin arrange their legal papers and assure their clients that their heads are extremely important pieces of kit, while down below concern over referee error and what they see as a slavish adherence to player safety is being dismantled.

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In April of this year All Blacks coach Ian Foster said, “we’ve got to learn”. He was talking about the flurry of red cards in Super Rugby. But stakeholders have been saying that for six seasons. They are not learning. Players are making poor decisions in their tackling and ruck clean-out technique as coaches fail to significantly change behaviour on the training field.

Diminishing sanctions for foul play that is premeditated, reckless, or dangerously stupid is a novel way to mend the rugby product in one rugby hemisphere as teams struggle with culture change, while in another rugby hemisphere the struggle is players getting their affairs in order.

There is little argument that red cards can ruin games. So too that head injuries can ruin lives. To struggle with the choice of which one is more important for the game of rugby seems both ludicrous and shameful.

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