All Blacks let off the hook again is no Freek
“A shocking advert for the game, all the more so given the pious promises on player welfare”
New Zealanders have been sent off in Test matches at the rate of one every 40-odd years. On that basis, the next one is not due until 2057 which may explain why nobody in black got his marching orders last weekend.
If nothing else it offers a cynical explanation as to why neither of the All Blacks responsible were brought to book for the mugging of Remy Grosso at Eden Park. Between them Sam Cane and Ofa Tu’ungafasi got the timing of their double hit so far out that an imaginative advocate could base a defence on the grounds that they were, astonishingly, 40 years early.
The first All Black to walk, Cyril Brownlie, did so at Twickenham in 1925 on the instructions of the referee, Albert Freethy from Neath. There is a story that the then Prince of Wales, later to become King Edward VII but only for a day or two, scribbled a note which he had dispatched to Mr Freethy out in the middle at half-time.
While the players took the pith out of their oranges, the referee might have felt someone had already taken it out of his. The message read: “Suggest you reinstate Brownlie – Wales.’’
Regrettably, Mr Freethy had sprung from his mortal coil long before anyone could verify whether he had afforded the interfering royal busybody the courtesy of a reply, perhaps along the lines of: “Who’s reffing this match? You or me?’’
Another 40 years passed before another Celtic referee, Ireland’s Kevin Kelleher, plucked up the courage to send a New Zealander off, not any old All Black but, at the time, the most famous of all, Colin Meads. Feared and revered in equal measure, ‘Pine Tree’ suffered the ultimate indignity at Murrayfield in 1967, sent off for ‘dangerous play’ having already been warned for ‘foul play’.
It will sound sacrilege to some but Meads was a serial offender. He should have been sent off again the following year for inflicting such damage on Ken Catchpole that the Australian scrum-half, then rated the world’s best, better even than Gareth Edwards, never played Test footy again.
By the time Jerome Garces banished Sonny Bill Williams halfway through the Lions’ series last summer, half a century had come and gone without any All Black having been shown a red card in a Test match. There were times when an increasing number watched in disbelief and wondered whether New Zealand had been granted some sort of diplomatic immunity.
During the one-sided 1987 World Cup semi-final against Wales, Wayne Shelford knocked Huw Richards out only for the Welshman, upon his return to the land of the living, to be sent off for landing the first blow. Despite his shattering retaliation, Shelford stayed put.
Richard Loe smashed a forearm into Paul Carozza’s face after the lightweight Wallaby wing had scored at Ballymore in 1992. Despite the cowardly attack which I witnessed first hand, Loe was allowed to carry on as though nothing had happened.
In the first minute at Twickenham in 1993, Jamie Joseph stamped on the ankle of England’s new scrum half, Kyran Bracken. A scan the following Monday morning ‘revealed a partial dislocation and a few bits of bone floating around the joint’. The damage bothered him for the rest of his career.
Video of the incident forced the New Zealand management to take ‘internal’ disciplinary action against Joseph. Had the TMO been invented back then, the flanker would surely have gone. On second thoughts, a finger-wagging might have sufficed.
That England victory a quarter of a century ago and those who sat in judgement on the incident in Auckland last weekend has a common denominator. The referee at Twickenham in 1993 and the citing commissioner at Eden Park 25 years later are one and the same, Freek Burger of South Africa.
He it was who decided that Sam Cane had no case to answer for the swinging arm to Grosso’s jaw. The flanker’s apologists claim it was an accident and maybe it was but the law makes no allowance for anything accidental, rightly so.
A split-second later Grosso suffered the double whammy of being hit on the head by a shoulder belonging to Tu’ungafasi, the new All Black prop who weighs in at more than 20 stone. Burger determined that the offence, in his opinion, fell ‘just short’ of the red card criteria for a citing.
In the opinion of others, most notably World Rugby’s vice-chairman Augustin Pichot, it most certainly did merit a red card. As far as an outraged public was concerned, the verdict seemed to contradict the governing body’s zero-tolerance to hits on the head.
Their reaction evoked the angry sound of fury generated by the failure of another citing commissioner, Willem Venter, to see a case for Tana Umaga and-or Keven Mealamu to answer for the ‘spear’ tackle that dislocated Brian O’Driscoll’s shoulder in the opening minute of the opening Lions Test in 2005.
The consequences of the blow, no matter how serious, ought not to influence the commissioner if he decides no foul play has been committed. That Grosso suffered a double fracture of the skull and that, officially, no act of foul play took place made it a shocking advert for the game, all the more so given World Rugby’s pious promises on player welfare.
Tu’ungafasi did get a ‘warning’ which would have made the game look even more of a laughing stock because it amounted to the most meaningless of yellow cards, one that will not even be used as part of any future totting-up process because no such process exists.
Examples of referees missing red card offences occur with worrying frequency despite increasing help both human and technological. Luke Pearce’s rush to give France lock Paul Gabrillagues a yellow for a high tackle he did not commit admittedly gave neither his two assistants nor the TMO time for a word in his ear.
Surely it would be better to correct a mistake before it takes effect than allow the injustice to take effect. All Blacks’ assistant coach Ian Foster conceded the French were ‘a little bit unlucky’, then said: “Was it significant? Probably not.’’
Probably not? France, clinging to an 11-11 draw and defending with real discipline, conceded 14 points in the ten minutes when they were down to 14 men and the match ran away from them. I presume Mr Foster was watching the same one.