Keeping eyes on the prize is no defence
WHAT a tangle World Rugby are getting itself into over red cards.
This week they rescinded a red card for Benjamin Fall when there was really no need, while the week before they did nothing at all for a blatant red card that wasn’t awarded to Kiwi Ofa Tu’ungafasi.
The Fall incident is worth revisiting. When a team kicks possession away they go from a position of being 100 per cent in charge of the ball to a situation which is 5050 at best, and if the kick is anything less than perfect – and the kick Fall was chasing was overhit – to something more akin to 20-80 or worse.
That being the case the chasers of a hanging kick must 1: Be aware at all times that there will be a receiver waiting in position to field the ball and that 2: If that receiver is better placed and has won the battle to the jump the onus on making a legal and safe challenge rests firmly with the chaser.
It simply doesn’t wash to say that the chaser ‘at all times had his eyes on the ball’, in fact that’s an admission straight away that he hasn’t taken into account that he might not be in a position to legally challenge and is reckless as to the consequences of an illegal challenge. Which in the case of Fall’s challenge on Beauden Barrett could have been a broken neck.
Most high late tackles in normal play are committed by those who ‘at all times had their eyes on the ball’. That should never be used as an excuse for such challenges nor should be used to defend poorly executed and doomed aerial challenges. Enough of this nonsense.