Red cards aren't stopping the head to head contact

 

The 1^st round of matches in the Heineken Cup have led on from the Autumn Internationals, and URC before that, when it comes to red cards issued in head-to-head contact situations.

The decisions have been pretty consistent and the referees have learnt to use vocabulary and sentence structure that justifies their actions and conforms to the mandate put in place by World Rugby who insist on harsh sanctions and that the decisions are judged in isolation – context counts for nothing. The intentions of the offending player, the dynamics of the game situation and sheer bad luck, count for nothing. Bang a head and you’re gone!

Everyone seems to have come to terms with it. You are hearing the commentators and pundits say things like “the way the games being refereed – that’s a definite red.” And seeing that it’s being consistently applied, no team should be worse affected by the way it’s being blown than any other.

And it’s in the interests of player safety, we all know. The problem, of course is that the results of matches are being affected. The top coaches and teams are clearly adapting and working out 14-man game plans and we are seeing teams win despite receiving a red card. But in most cases, red-carding a player is effectively awarding the result to the other team.

The question is why is it still happening so often, given that the players know they aren’t going to get away with it, and that it’s probably going to cost their team the game? If World Rugby’s intention is to change player behaviour, they aren’t succeeding.

The answer has to be that it’s just about impossible, the way the game is being played now, to avoid these incidents. The players aren’t changing their behaviours because they can’t.

Take two other foul play situations which have become automatic red-card offences – the spear tackle and the taking out of a jumping player in the air. At some stage it was decided, in the interests of safety, to use red cards to remove them from the game. And it worked. You do still see them from time to time, but not nearly as frequently as you used to. The players have changed their behaviour - because they can. Kick-chasers are waiting for the catcher to touch the ground before tackling him; and tacklers are backing off when they meet no resistance and the opponent is about to be lifted and dumped.

So, why hasn’t it had the same effect in head-to-head contact? It’s because in the other situations some deliberate action was required commit the foul (almost always) and the player can deliberately not take that action. Not so with head contact. In almost every case the contact was unintentional. Sure, the tackler could have gone lower, but then he would be giving the ball carrier an invitation to offload. He’s doing his job, which in the modern game is to stop the momentum of the opponents and try to set up a turnover. He's certainly not going out to head butt anyone. Sometimes, in the process (and it happens in the wink of an eye), factors combine to create contact to the head. It’s then reviewed in slow motion, and it looks pretty bad on occasion.

That’s happening, and the red cards aren’t stopping it. We can keep on with the protocol, hoping that eventually it will work, but that’s a little bit insane (by Einstein’s definition). Games are being lost because of cards, the poor referees and TMOs are being made to look stupid, and the crowds are staying away from games in their thousands.

We can’t have players trying to decapitate each other, obviously. Now’s the time to for someone clever to come up with a solution that eliminates it without ruining the game. This one’s not working.