Crime still pays thanks to red card blind spot
The opening round of European competition has underlined a disturbing fact of rugby life, that some referees have trouble recognising a red card when they see one. Five players have been found guilty as charged and suspended for a total of 17 weeks. Retrospective justice is better than no justice at all but that all five escaped dismissal from the scene of their offences proves that crime at the highest level of the European game does pay.
Instead of being banged to rights at the time of their offences, those who should have been sent off were allowed to continue as if nothing untoward had happened. Only one found himself subjected to the inconvenience of a ten-minute rest in the bin.
So much for the warning, widely touted on behalf of the organisers, that those guilty of head-high tackles would be banished. Simon Halliday, the chairman of European club rugby, promised a ‘zero tolerance’ policy in keeping with the game’s concern over the frightening issue of concussion.
In a few cases over an issue where one would have been one too many, the tolerance proved to be far from zero, prompting the conclusion that the referee concerned was not sure whether a red-card offence had been committed.
By putting those responsible in the dock, some days after the event, the citing commissioner in all five instances decided that the referees had failed to apply the full force of the law when it mattered most, at the time. Those subsequently brought to belated justice had already been let off to some degree.
Two of the five retrospective red cards featured players from the same pack, the Toulouse pair Jerome Kaino and Lucas Pointud. Had they been punished for their actions on the spot, Toulouse would have been reduced to 14 men before half-time and 13 for the last half hour.
In that event the wreckage they helped create at the Rec would probably not have cost Bath the match. Club owner Bruce Craig’s sense of grievance has prompted him to call for a replay not that he will get one and nor should he.
In defence of the referee, Ireland’s Andrew Brace, it has to be said that Kaino’s upright tackle on Jamie Roberts divided opinion.
If former international players were not sure that Toulouse’s hired New Zealand hand had committed a foul, let alone one which demanded a red card, then the referee could be forgiven for being uncertain.
Brace was not on his own. As well as referring the matter to the TMO, he could also tap into the expert opinion of his two assistant referees. A collective uncertainty appeared to ensue leaving Brace to settle for the halfway house of a yellow card which at least one pundit criticised as ‘harsh.’
A three-man independent tribunal ruled three days later that Kaino ought to have been shown red and on that premise duly banned him for five weeks. Having dropped one clanger before half-time, the officials at Bath dropped a much bigger one shortly afterwards.
Pointud launching himself headfirst at Bath prop Nathan Catt ten minutes into the second half appeared to be an open-and-shut case of a red card. Inexplicably, Mr Brace did not see fit to take the precaution of referring it to the TMO.
Had he done so, Pointud would have been sent off on the spot. While referees cannot be expected to see everything, it almost beggars belief that an incident captured all too clearly on television was not considered worthy of a second look by those responsible for imposing law and order.
Pointud subsequently got four weeks, another retrospective sentence which will reinforce Bath’s conviction that they were sold short, very short. The collective failure of the referee and his team to send the two Toulouse players off the field allowed them to get away with winning a match they would surely otherwise have lost.
Had justice been done when it ought to have been done, Freddie Burns would probably have been spared some of his embarrassment. Instead of costing Bath the match his folly would have been restricted to reducing the margin of their victory.
The tournament promoters, European Professional Club Rugby, cannot shrug it off as an isolated incident. Glasgow Warriors are entitled to feel almost as hard done by as Bath in that they, too suffered the severe damage of an opening home defeat against opponents who got away with some
“It beggars belief that an incident captured all too clearly on TV wasn’t considered worthy of a second look”
larceny of their own.
Alex Lozowski’s two-week ban brought official confirmation that he ought to have been sent off during Saracens’ tie at Scotstoun. It may, or may not, have made any difference to the English champions’ win by the margin of 13-3 but it would have had the potential to change the game.
Referees missing misdemeanours which demand red cards is nothing new. Every citing that results in a guilty verdict is a tacit admission that no matter how extenuating the circumstances, the referee failed to ensure that justice was done when it matters most, at the time.
Referees have the support staff and the technology to ensure that the right decision is made on the ground without being deferred to a disciplinary panel the following week. Instead the citing commissioners are being left to tidy up the mess and the game’s once cherished sense of fair play takes another battering.