Rainbow Cup clouded by rules farce
THE Rainbow Cup kicks off next weekend with ridiculous rule variations — the most controversial a cheap-shot charter — that have the potential to ruin the tournament as a spectacle.
Top of the list is the ‘trial’ which allows a team to replace a player who has been sent off after just 20 minutes. Edinburgh head coach Richard Cockerill may have been joking when he said, ‘you get your worst player to punch their best player and then you just play a man down for 20 minutes,’ but he isn’t far wrong.
Key players are already targeted by the opposition early in matches to try to put them off their game. Now the deterrent for any bad challenge has been significantly reduced — with the offending side only being left a man down for 20 minutes. Indeed, committing a red-card offence may now seem the lesser of two evils when players are making split-second decisions on the pitch and I fear what the repercussions could be.
It could also be argued that it does not help officials.
Will referees now be more inclined to show a red card given it’s no longer a ‘permanent’ punishment for a team? Then there is the ‘captain’s challenge’ — which is similar to the referral systems in both cricket and tennis.
The Rainbow Cup trial allows the skipper of a team to challenge one decision made by the referee within the first 75 minutes provided it relates to a try being scored or foul play. In the last five minutes, the captain can challenge any decision, provided he has not lost a previous one.
Any challenge — which has to be made within 20 seconds — will be referred to the TMO, who will review the footage before the match referee makes the final decision. Just how long every challenge will take to review is anybody’s guess.
You see a lot less on the pitch as a player than you do when you are in the coaches’ box with close-ups and action replays being shown on the screen in front of you.
Guaranteed in the Rainbow Cup you will see the captain looking up to the coaches’ box, asking whether to appeal a decision or not.
Having just 20 seconds from when the whistle blows to making his mind up, there will be some frantic messages going from the coaches’ box to the touchline, to the captain to challenge decisions.
With Cockerill’s booming voice — he is so loud in his coaches’ box he could give Brian Blessed a run for his money — he’ll at least be able to get his message across to his skipper.
However, the captain’s challenge is likely to prolong games even more than they are just now. On top of existing breaks for injuries and scrum resets, the time frame for matches will drag on.
The third and only non- controversial trial is the introduction of goal-line drop outs rather than behind the 22-metre line for when the ball is held-up over the line, knocked-on in the in-goal area, or grounded in the in-goal area by a defending player.
World Rugby are keen to have the changes, which are also being trialled in the southern hemisphere, introduced in as many tournaments as possible.
Certainly, from a PR point of view, bringing them into the Rainbow Cup can only increase the interest in the new tournament. Whether it’s the kind of attention they want remains to be seen.