Hansen has little complaint about Williams’ red card
OWEN FARRELL and Johnny Sexton sprinted 20 metres across the pitch waving their arms. ‘Ref! Ref!’ they shouted.
Jerome Garces looked up the big screen and the decision was easy. Sonny Bill Williams had to go. The French referee held his nerve and showed the first red card to an All Black for 50 years.
Williams had no complaints — Steve Hansen had none either. ‘The red’s card’s a red card,’ said the New Zealand head coach.
In a moment of recklessness, Williams’ right shoulder smashed Anthony Watson and sent 17 stone of force down the winger’s spine.
Watson saw it coming. His face filled with fear at the sight.
The winger had already been wrapped up by Waisake Naholo and Williams’ role was to add a secondary impact.
But he flew in with no arms — a rugby league-style hit — and smashed his way into the Lions history books.
Farrell and Sexton protested, before scrum-half Conor Murray joined in.
‘It looked illegal,’ said Murray. ‘You see one of your players get hurt and you want the ref to have a look at it.
‘I wasn’t trying to get anyone sent off, it’s just one of those things that happens.’
Garces’ initial instincts were correct. ‘Direct charge on the head,’ he said. ‘I think it’s a red card’.
Many referees would not have had the nerve, especially in New Zealand, where no All Black had ever been sent off.
Only Colin Meads, in 1967, and Cyril Brownlie, in 1925, have ever seen red and assistant George Ayoub did his best to cloud Garces’ judgment.
‘Do you want to see another angle?’ he said, offering the Frenchman the chance to show yellow and join the cast of officials who have bottled the big calls in the land of the long white cloud.
But Garces, with one of the biggest refereeing decisions of all time, was not fazed by the hysteria.
Irrespective of his intent, Williams had broken three tackle laws with one rush of blood.
‘I’m not Sonny Bill so I don’t know what his intent was,’ said Hansen. ‘Things happen in the heat of the moment and players end up on the wrong side of the law. Are they intentional? I don’t think anyone does that.
‘It could have been a yellow or a red and he chose it to be a red, so you have to live with it.’
Hansen admitted: ‘Sonny didn’t use his arms, so put himself at risk. He connected with young Anthony’s head and put him at risk too.’
Skipper Kieran Read put up a hollow protest but Garces had already reached for his pocket.
‘I have no choice, I need to protect the player,’ he said, leaving Williams with a lonely walk to the changing rooms.
Williams will now face a judicial hearing in Wellington today, when he is likely to receive a ban that will rule him out of Saturday’s deciding Test, and he can have few complaints.
‘Obviously the Sonny Bill Williams red card was significant,’ said Lions coach Warren Gatland.
‘He’s led in with the shoulder and the ref felt he’s got no choice. It was a significant loss for the All Blacks in terms of a key person in the middle. We’re aware of that.
‘It’s going to be pretty brutal next week.’