ABs in naughty chair
Abig team is going to lose a knockout match at this World Cup because one of its players has been carded for a dangerous tackle.
The job for Steve Hansen and his coaches is to make sure that team is not New Zealand. The next week must be spent practising and practising tackle technique until there is no danger of an All Black following Sonny Bill Williams and Scott Barrett into the changing sheds of shame.
The All Blacks have failed to win a British and Irish Lions series and been humiliated in a Bledisloe Cup match under Hansen’s watch, because their players routinely go into contact far too high. The country will be praying that a World Cup is not about to go the same way.
Having two players yellow carded against Namibia, 250-1 outsiders to win the match for heaven’s sake, is not good enough. I have some sympathy for Ofa Tuungafasi who did not swing his arm into the falling player.
But Nepo Laulala’s yellow card is the sort of tackle that will have infuriated the All Blacks coach. Yes, the Namibia player was again going down, but the swinging arm was both reckless and foolish. Even the All Blacks around Laulala knew he was in trouble. Shannon Frizell immediately apologised with a contrite hand.
Hansen knows the scale of the risk. It will have contributed to Owen Franks’ non-selection for this World Cup. Alain Rolland, the head of referees, had toured the world explaining to the head coaches how this World Cup was going to be refereed around the head area. With Franks’ tackling history, Hansen would have known that the Crusaders prop was an accident waiting to happen. Now Laulala has done a Franks and Hansen will be singularly unamused.
Laulala said before this World Cup: ‘‘The coach is a tough man to please.’’
The 28-year-old prop is already tasting his own words. Laulala did not return to the pitch after his yellow card offence. He is now going to have to convince the coaches mighty quickly that he can turn this around or he may not return to the starting side.
Hansen said of the yellow cards: ‘‘They were fair under the guidelines. It’s just where the game is at, at the moment.’’
Sean Fitzpatrick, the former All Blacks hooker and captain, said: ‘‘They’ll be a little bit concerned about the Laulala penalty. I think he will be quite happy about the yellow card because that could have quite easily, if there hadn’t been a mitigating factor, been a red card . . . It’s about the mindset changing. We can’t do that.’’
We have already seen England’s Owen Farrell change his tackle technique at this World Cup. Farrell’s dad is a defence coach and former rugby league international and his boy was taught to hit hard and high, with shoulder and swinging arm.
But Farrell, so far at least, has managed to modify that ingrained technique and pull out when a player is already falling. It will be interesting to see if he can continue to restrain himself in the red heat of a quarterfinal.
And this is why the All Blacks have to practice and practice. Men like Williams have to change the habits of a lifetime. It takes a hell of a long time to change a golf swing that is built into a player’s
motor muscle memory. It is nearly as difficult to change a lifetime’s tackle technique.
But the first positive step was to hear Hansen’s comments that the decisions were fair. This sets him apart from some other coaches in the tournament. Steve Jackson, Samoa’s head coach, was seen shaking his head after TJ Ioane was correctly yellow carded against Japan. Jackson had previously openly stated that he did not agree with the decision to suspend two players for dangerous tackles.
Michael Cheika, the coach of Australia, had said, amongst many other idiotic things: ‘‘I am not sure I know the rules any more. As a rugby player, a former player, I am embarrassed here. You have got to look after players, but not to the extreme where you are doing so just for the doctors and lawyers. I do not understand any more.
‘‘The referees all seem spooked and everyone is worried, except the players.’’
I am embarrassed by the foolishness of Cheika. The tackle laws are being correctly implemented in order to save players from themselves. Four young men died in France last year. Philippe Chauvin, the father of Nicolas who was killed by a double tackle, is now taking legal action for manslaughter.
Chauvin told L’Equipe: ‘‘I’m a former rugby player, I’m passionate, I’ve coached my children to this sport. What happened has made me think. Losing a child is terrible, even more when it’s because of a problem that we could have avoided. I pay, and we will pay for it all my life with my wife, but I do not want that happening to others, so I take my responsibilities by going further with this complaint.’’
Perhaps Cheika and Jackson would care to think of Monsieur Chauvin, and all the other parents who have lost children to dangerous tackles, when they mouth off against the new laws.
Perhaps Raelene Castle, the head of Australian rugby, might like to think if it is appropriate for the coach of Australia to be ridiculing people who are trying to make rugby safer. What sort of example does that set. Why is Cheika still in a job? His comments are far more dangerous than Israel Folau’s.
So I am pleased, very pleased, that Hansen came out in support of the officials. He knows these high tackles cannot continue. And he knows that the All Blacks won’t continue if they keep getting cards. It is down to the players to change and captain Kieran Read needs to lead that change.
The worst case scenario is not that the All Blacks lose because of a bad tackle technique. The worst case scenario is that a player suffers the hideous fate of Max Brito, the Ivory Coast player who was paralysed at the 1995 Rugby World Cup when a maul collapsed on top of him.
In 2007 Brito said in an interview with LeMonde: ‘‘It is now 12 years since I have been in this state. I have come to the end of my tether . . . If one day I fall seriously ill, and if I have the strength and courage to take my own life, then I will do it . . . This bloody handicap – it’s my curse. It kills me and I will never accept it. I can’t live with it and it’s going to be with me for the rest of my life.’’
The nightmare of what rugby has done to young men like Chauvin and Brito is the real reason why the All Blacks have to get their tackle technique right.