How red card led to blond bombshell for Turnbull
JOSH Turnbull’s red card in Cardiff Blues’ opening game of the season came at a price in more ways than one.
To start with, it saw the Welsh international forward pick up a three-match ban.
But it also left him having to pay a forfeit in the form of a striking new bleached-blond hairdo.
Let’s hear him explain why. “We’ve got this system where if you commit an offence, say if you lose your passport or anything like that, or you get a red card, you’ve got to roll a dice,” he said.
“All the numbers then are a different punishment.
“I rolled a five which is either dye your hair or shave it all off.
“It’s getting a bit cold, so I went for the dye option!
“I texted a mate of mine who is a barber and sent him a picture from online of what I wanted.
“I said if I’m going to do it, I might as well go the full hog and do it properly.
“So I had it done and came into training all blond.
“It’s worked quite well. The wife’s quite happy and all the boys say I look about three or four years younger, so I will take that as a compliment.
“They reckon it’s probably added a couple of years on to my career!”
The obvious question is what happens if you roll the other numbers?
“So, six is get off scot-free, five is the hair, four is wear a suit to and from work,” said Turnbull.
“Three is buy coffees for all the forwards or all the backs, whichever position you are.
“Two is wash the cars of all the players in your position.
“One is do a video presentation on why you should be captain of the region.
“It’s a bit of a fun, in-house thing between the players to keep morale high.
“You don’t really want to find yourself in that situation because you don’t know what’s going to happen!
“I think I would much rather this forfeit than any of the others.
“To be fair, Scott Andrews did his video presentation the other day and it was actually pretty good. I will leave you speak to him about that one!
“He had to do his because he lost his passport. He was meant to be travelling reserve for the Zebre game and couldn’t go.
“Owen Lane has had to go blond too. I can’t remember what he did. Jason Harries got off scot-free. He got quite lucky.”
While his new hairdo is a bit of fun inhouse, it was a real shock to the system at the time when the 10-cap Turnbull was sent off against Zebre out in Parma.
It was his first red card during a 14-year career spent at the Scarlets and the Blues.
He was dismissed for a shoulder to the head of opposing flanker Maxime Mbandà just after half-time at the Stadio Lanfranchi.
Not that he thought he was in any trouble initially.
“Corey Domachowski and I made the tackle simultaneously,” recalls the 32-year-old.
“Corey came in and hit him quite low, but quite hard and sent him backwards. “I thought that’s what the offence was. “I actually said to Corey ‘You could be in trouble here because you absolutely smashed him’.
“But then when we saw it on the big screen, all of a sudden it started to dawn on me that I had actually connected with the guy.
“Once they played the reverse angle and it showed my shoulder connecting with his neck area, it was like ‘I could be looking at a card here’.
“I didn’t think at the time it would be a red.
“When the ref said to me it was a redcard offence, I was pretty gutted to be honest.
“I was more shocked than anything because I have never had a red card in my life.
“The game was in the balance at the time and could have gone either way.
“I’m just glad the boys ended up digging in and coming through with the win.”
Looking back, Turnbull has no complaints about the referee’s decision and supports the drive to lower tackle height and reduce contact to the head.
“There was no malicious intent to cause any harm in the tackle,” he said.
“It was just I got my whole profile wrong.
“I used the wrong shoulder in the tackle. I had my head on the inside and I should have had it on the outside.
“The game is played at such speed now that sometimes you don’t get that opportunity to readjust and make the perfect tackle. It can happen in split seconds.
“The way the rules are now, with the safety of players rightly being the priority, you are not going to get away with tackles like that, as you’ve seen with other red cards recently.
“They are trying to eradicate it out of the game and I am definitely in favour of that.
“The last three weeks I have worked hard on my tackle technique.
“I have always been quite an aggressive
defender. I like to get off the line and hit people quite hard.
“But sometimes you have to go back and just tweak a couple of things and work on that body height, so you don’t get caught out again.”
Having completed his three-match ban, Turnbull returned to action for the Blues on the blindside flank against Ulster on Monday night.
He stood out, not just for his new hairdo but the quality of his all-action performance which earned him a place in the PRO14 team of the week.
Turnbull – who is also part of the coaching team at Carmarthen Quins, having previously worked with Newcastle Emlyn – will now look to continue his good form when the Blues take on Edinburgh at Murrayfield on Monday night.