Hansen feels for Fall-guy

If Beauden Barrett lands on his hip or shoulder are we even having this discussion? Steve Hansen is pretty sure we’re not.

Coaches are the first to arc up at the merest suggestion one of their boys is a victim of foul play. Concussion symptoms seem set to rule Barrett, the All Blacks first five-eighth, out of Saturday’s test against France in Dunedin, but you won’t hear Hansen moaning about it.

Instead it’s France fullback Benjamin Fall – the man whose actions injured Barrett – that the All Blacks coach continues to spare a thought for.

Fall was sent off by referee Angus Gardner, just 11 minutes into New Zealand’s eventual 26-13 win over France at Westpac Stadium. Barrett and Fall had contested a high kick, the former fell badly and Gardner felt he had ‘‘no option’’ but to brandish a red card.

‘‘Rugby’s been dangerous for years. The only thing that’s different is you’ve now got bigger men, faster men who are running into each other more often,’’ Hansen said yesterday.

Most of it is fairly harmless, said Hansen, such as when All Blacks second five-eighth Ryan Crotty cut his head on France captain Mathieu Bastareaud, late in proceedings at Westpac Stadium.

‘‘You get double-tackles,’’ Hansen continued. ‘‘A lot of concussions are caused by friendly fire from their own team-mates.

‘‘You don’t want to be redcarding your own team-mates, so what we have to understand is these things are happening and how do we regulate for the dirty play, the intentional stuff that noone wants in the game, and to be honest there’s not much of that happening now, versus the grey stuff.

‘‘Common sense has to prevail somewhere along the line and the first part of that is accepting that those things are going to happen. OK, so what are the mitigating circumstances that will allow us to stop it happening so much?

‘‘Can we mitigate for it? Yes. Well then do that. No. OK, then what are we going to do in those situations? Are we just going to go straight to red because it doesn’t look right?

‘‘If Beauden hadn’t fallen on his head, he [Fall] wouldn’t have got red-carded. So what’s the action? Is it Beauden falling on his head or is it because they both went and contested for the ball?

‘‘It shouldn’t be how you fall, it should be the action of what caused the fall. ’’

Hansen’s point is that accidents happen and, as it stands, rugby’s law book doesn’t appear to legislate for those. He has no doubt that, to the letter of the law, Gardner was right to send Fall off. But there’s a spirit he’d rather see invoked, to avoid damp squibs such as the one we ended up with after France were reduced to 14 men.

‘‘At the moment we’re trying to treat every collision the same,’’ said Hansen. ‘‘Deliberate foul play? There’s no room for it and it should be treated with a red card.

‘‘[But] unintentional collisions, that result in people landing the wrong way, being hurt; there’s got to be some wriggle room for that. It’s spoiling test matches, red cards for unintentional incidents.’’