Why backs could suffer most with tackle clampdown
An irony of the clampdown on high tackles is that the game’s least dominant defenders could end up receiving the severest sanctions.
Minutes before Danny Cipriani was sent off for Gloucester against Munster, he made a similarly upright tackle on CJ Stander, which is pictured at the bottom of this article.
Standing tall, Cipriani aimed to soak up the momentum of Stander, but stay on his feet in order to bounce back into the defensive line. It is a method regularly seen by playmakers such as Johnny Sexton, George Ford and Owen Farrell when heavier carriers target them.
The technique is not sympathetic to personal defensive statistics. Opta attributed 17 missed tackles to Farrell over the course of the 2018 Six Nations. However, in many of those instances he slipped off the contact area after slowing the tackler before a team-mate completed the tackle.
Although this body position rarely stops opponents in their tracks, it is more likely to stop a potentially game-breaking offload.
There is an element of self-preservation too. Staying upright also decreases the likelihood of a head clash with a team-mate who has committed to the same collision, and Exeter Chiefs duo Dave Ewers and Sam Skinner both missed the weekend’s match against Castres after that happened against Munster. This must be a future concern for the sport if tacklers are encouraged to go lower.
Tellingly, Cipriani’s red card came after a tackle on Rory Scannell in which Gloucester prop Val Rapava Ruskin charged in from the other side, and it looked like Cipriani left his shoulder out as a contingency plan. Regardless, Cipriani’s shoulder made contact with Scannell’s head and he had to go. But what this showed is that as the directive attempts to alter player behaviour, we may see more red cards for those who we would not associate with aggressive defence.