Cullen warns of play-acting peril as tackle law muddle divides sport
LEINSTER coach Leo Cullen believes fellow coaches, and players, have a crucial role in avoiding any “play-acting” in an attempt to exploit tackle directives which now include a zero-tolerance red card penalty for offenders.
Cullen was responding after the directives, introduced 18 months ago, ignited fresh controversy in recent days, highlighted by the divisive reaction within the sport after Leicester’s Will Spencer was sent off last weekend for a high tackle on Wasps’ Tommy Taylor.
Tigers’ boss Geordan Murphy reneged on his impetuous post-match comments that the game had “gone too PC” but many within the sport remain anxious that consistency must to be applied if the sanctions for high tackling – whether intentional or not – remain so punitive.
“It is a difficult one to say with absolute clarity because of what the mitigating factors are in any situation and how much mitigation does the referee allow,” said Cullen.
“I mean what sort of leniency is he allowed in terms of making decisions? I think there has to be a little bit of sympathy if something is accidental, that would be my view.
Confusion
“But then on the other hand that sometimes does create confusion because players want to have a consistency of message. And there is a big ‘but’ there.
“It is very hard to say because you need to show me the examples and then we can make some decisions based on those.
“Rugby is a complicated game. If we are looking at an incident and what should be a sanction, there are 20 people in this room and you might not get 20 similar opinions.
“Even we were struggling to get consensus on an incident when we were talking about it earlier. It’s hard but in many ways that is the beauty of the game as well.” There may be a less enchanting side. Given that every law has unintended consequences, many also feel that rugby’s belated attempts to address the once-perennial ignorance of players trying to fake an absence of head injuries could now lead to some attempting to feign injury instead. This is not merely wild conjecture but a fear directly reported to the global representative of the Players’ Union, Omar Hassanein when he cited direct feedback from senior players in the game.
Cullen feels that if coaches use their feedback to referees to identify potential miscreants, the potential for exploitation could be minimised.
“We understand that the referees are out there, similar to the players, and they’re getting judged on their performance, and they might not get all the calls right.
“There’s lots going on in the game, it can be quite chaotic, rugby, and obviously there’s the assistants and the TMOs involved as well trying to get the correct outcome.
“But even with that still it can be a challenge because there’s all there’s the extra challenge of the communication part that comes with that. We just try to feed back. ‘This is what we see, this is the way that we are interpreting the rules, can we have some feedback from you guys as to what you’re seeing or is there something we’re not doing right?’
“So that’s what we do, we try to help the process, to help the spectacle become better because we don’t want to see cynical behaviour.
“It’s important that we’re still instilling the right values in the game because that’s what the game should be, it shouldn’t be about play-acting.
“So if we’re seeing guys play-acting we’ll point it out. If there are one or two individuals that we see are out there, we might ask them to keep an eye on this guy because of what we’re seeing in his previous three or four games, whether he’s trying to milk a penalty or he’s doing something ugly around the ruck or whatever.
“We don’t really want that in the game. “So as coaches, we need to try to help that process along behind the scenes and then we need to address that from the players’ point of view because we don’t want that in the game.
“We want to have a game that is played in good values because that’s the beauty of our game.
“We don’t want to go down the line of other sports maybe where play-acting is rewarded.”
Scrum-halves, ahem, rarely milk penalties; in this particular issue, Luke McGrath agrees that the game can’t afford to indulge in deceit.
“You don’t want the game going down that road, definitely not. I certainly wouldn’t be trying to milk a penalty and try to get someone sent off. These laws are a recognition that something has to be done in the sport.”
McGrath is one of seven changes in Cullen’s side to face an Edinburgh side who have never won in the RDS and won’t do so tonight.
Dan Leavy is on the bench after shoulder surgery while captain Jonathan Sexton will earn his 150th cap.
Verdict: Leinster
LEINSTER – J Larmour; F McFadden, G Ringrose, R Henshaw, J Lowe; J Sexton (capt), L McGrath; C Healy, J Tracy, M Bent; D Toner, J Ryan; M Deegan, J van der Flier, J Conan. Reps: S Cronin, P Dooley, T Furlong, M Kearney, D Leavy, J Gibson-Park, R Byrne, J Tomane.
EDINBURGH – D Fife; J Farndale, C Dean, JP Socino, D van der Merwe; J van der Walt, S Kennedy; A Dell, R Ford, S Berghan, F McKenzie (capt), B Toolis, L Hamilton, J Ritchie, M Bradbury. Reps: D Cherry, P Schoeman, M McCallum, C Hunter-Hill, L Crosbie, N Fowles, S Hickey, J Johnstone.
REF – D Jones (WRU)
Leinster v Edinburgh, Live, eir Sport 1, 7.35