Sin bin those silly cards
When it comes to Manawatu¯ club rugby’s two semifinals on Saturday, let’s hope those oppressive cards stay in pockets. In the vital match at Massey University last weekend, Varsity had two players yellow-carded within a minute of each other and College Old Boys couldn’t believe their luck playing against 13 for 10 minutes or so with the game on a knife edge.
I called – quietly – for my money back, even if I hadn’t shelled out a dime.
Those who were non-aligned hadn’t trooped out to the seat of learning to see an unfair fight.
It wasn’t the referee’s fault. Varsity No 8 Kirk Tufuga was sent to the cooler for slapping the ball down from a COB pass.
Under the current regime, refs would be carded if they didn’t show an automatic yellow for this. But the game needs ramping back to when such a crime was only a penalty – until learned luminaries such as Justin Marshall and co kept blabbing about it. Before that it was a mere knockon, as it is in the NRL.
My take is that if an attacking player can’t avoid an outstretched enemy hand, then he has messed up. Perhaps, the exception could be if the slap happens in the act of scoring.
Just as unnecessary in rugby is the penalty for a player batting the ball dead, when he can legally kick it or run it over the dead-ball line. That one should be struck off the books, again as in the NRL.
Another evil is the habit of players and captains pleading to the referee for the opposition to be carded, often for what they see as repeat offences. They might wish to see teams short-handed, but we, the punters, prefer a contest.
In a recent Blues game, the TV earbashers called for a yellow card to be waved because the Blues’ scrum kept getting belted backwards. The penalties weren’t enough for them.
Sure enough the ref picked out some unfortunate prop who had just come off the bench and dispatched him.
Referees should also consider penalising the critters who provocatively shove or ruffle the hair of opposition players who have made an error.
They might also ping Hurricanes halfback TJ Perenara as soon as he runs on the field to shut him up and get him out of their hair.
Just now, Perenara would be better off working on his passing than his constant squealing.
Frank Oliver once told me he clocked a troublemaker of a Waikato forward as they jogged out at Hamilton to start the game. It had the desired effect.
This moves me on to the Hurricanes, who seem rather mis-named just now, well, since the international window anyway. They are getting the Hurri-up, hardly giving coach Chris Boyd a fitting farewell.
They seem to be relying on Ngani Laumape and Jordie Barrett because a smiling Beauden lost it, hopefully temporarily, against the second-string Chiefs at Hamilton on Saturday. His kicks were so over-cooked it made Chiefs fullback Solomon Alaimalo look as vulnerable as the Statue of Liberty.
The Hurricanes had meekly allowed captain Brad Shields to flit off to play for England in South Africa, which was always a risk, and although he didn’t come back injured, he did return crook.
Their forwards, aside from injured flanker Ardie Savea and hooker Ricky Riccitelli, lack the weaponry to go much further.
Even so, had they not been playing the silly conference system, they would be lying second overall on points.
So now, give the silly Crusaders the silly trophy and get on with the real part of the season.
The stretched Super Rugby season should end in June to enable players’ recovery for the All Blacks and their NPC campaigns.
I must applaud ref Mike Fraser from Saturday’s game.
At last we had someone pinging flying torpedoes going into rucks off their flippers.
I called – quietly – for my money back, even if I hadn’t shelled out a dime.
Cave man
It wasn’t only the soccer players at the World Cup in Russia who had diving off to a fine art.
So did a certain golfer revealed in the 2018 book Tiger Woods, the most comprehensive sins-and-all biography yet written about Eldrick, this one by investigative authors Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian.
The Chosen One had his own scuba dive instructor and once he conquered that discipline, the authors said he asked to be taught cave diving, much riskier, as we discovered from last week’s rescue in Thailand.
Woods’ insurers of course didn’t approve. As his instructor explained, cave diving is dangerous because you’re underwater and underground, the only air is on your back and you can get lost and the only way out is where you went in.
But then Tiger was never reluctant to go in at the deep end and has survived a multitude of mostly self-imposed catastrophes.
After 250 interviews, the rest of the 70,000 words of the biography, unauthorised of course, do not endear you to Tiger the caver, nor to the father, the mother or the holy agent.
Read this and never again will you will him to win. Caddie Steve Williams did well to escape.