Barrett fiasco underlines bias towards All Blacks
What is the role of World Rugby? To me it implies that the game should be played and refereed in a consistent way across the globe, but in the light of the rescinding of the red card Jordie Barrett received in last weekend’s third Bledisloe Cup game, that clearly isn’t the case.
To those of us in the north it all seemed pretty clear cut: he jumped for a high ball, had his knee raised as players do, but he then extended his leg, showing his studs which went into Wallabies wing Marika Koroibete’s face. It was, as they say, a red card all day long. That was how the ref saw it, saying it was direct contact to the head. However, what wasn’t considered was that Barrett is an All Black, and therefore borderline untouchable in these matters!
Some of the stuff used by New Zealand pundits and Press to defend Saint Jordie beggars belief. Apparently Koroibete was about to tackle Barrett in the air – not so, he was a leg’s length away! It wasn’t intentional – that’s not a defence in the Premiership or the PRO14 – and in fact
there’s an almost identical incident which got Adam Hastings a red card when Glasgow played Leinster.
At the disciplinary hearing Barrett got off, which on the one hand is astonishing, but on the other didn’t surprise me as that’s what seems to happen when All Blacks are up before the beak – maybe they’d provided extra good chocolate biscuits?
However, what is really serious for the game were the findings of the panel. They decided that it wasn’t intentional, so it shouldn’t have been a red card, and they took into account the medical report that
showed Koroibete wasn’t seriously hurt!
That seems to me to run counter to how the game is refereed in the northern hemisphere, and we simply can’t have the laws being applied totally differently in different jurisdictions. If a 6ft 7ins second row ‘clothes lines’ a 5ft 7ins scrum half, does he now get away with it because the difference in height made it difficult and it wasn’t intentional?
No, he sees red and needs to learn to modify his technique, just as Barrett and Hastings need to learn not to extend their leg into an opposing
player’s face. As for the medical report – we can’t have decisions made on whether or not a player gets hurt!
The conclusion I draw is that World Rugby is increasingly irrelevant with countries doing their own thing, and this has to stem from weak leadership – what’s the point of a governing body that is unable to govern?
The old adage ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ is a good one, but apparently it’s lost on the people behind the World 12s competition which was announced last week. This is yet another desperate attempt by the southern hemisphere nations to come up with a wheeze to enliven their increasingly boring rugby calendar, and to try to bribe their players to stay at home.
Steve Hansen, the ex-All Blacks coach, is an ambassador for the proposed new competition, and he was on typically outspoken form when he accused the northern Unions of not liking change, saying ‘if they think it’s going to benefit the southern hemisphere they won’t do it and they’ve been like that for a long time’!
Yes, it’s the same Steve Hansen who, when coaching the All Blacks, argued for a 16-week break for his players: now he wants to cram yet another tournament into the schedule.
The facts he doesn’t want to face are that the Six Nations is the most successful Test match competition outside of the RWC, with the south’s Rugby Championship paling into insignificance in comparison, while the Top 14 and Premiership, and even the befuddled new United Rugby Championship are miles ahead of Super Rugby. Because he and his like can’t match these, they want to drag them down to their level, and it can’t be allowed to happen.