Red cards highlight why the day of the jackal may be over

Three Premiership defence gurus have their say on the way players compete at breakdown, and how it may need to change

Are we witnessing the death of the jackal? The flurry of red cards handed out by referees in recent weeks – most notably to Ireland’s Peter O’mahony and Scotland’s Zander Fagerson – for attempting to shift the jackaller away from the contact area has at the very least raised serious questions over one of rugby’s most rarefied arts.

O’mahony and Fagerson accidentally caught prone defenders in the head and were dismissed. Players, coaches, pundits and fans know there has to be zero tolerance on contact to the head, and with good reason given the focus on long-term brain damage caused by such injuries.

But with intent no longer part of the equation and the necessity to generate quick ball still as great as ever, how much longer can the jackal last in its current guise?

Nick Easter, the former England No8 who is now in charge of the breakdown and defence at Newcastle Falcons, believes rugby is at a crossroads.

“What is the essence of rugby?” Easter asks. “The essence of the game is the fair contest for possession. O’mahony and Fagerson’s red cards were correct by the letter of the law, and with what we’re trying to achieve at the moment. But do the laws need to be adjusted or do the current laws need to be enforced? Do we do away with the jackal and just have counter-rucking? The ruck is a very dynamic, quick action and at the minute it’s not right.

“Something like [the O’mahony and Fagerson incidents] are deemed as foul play, but not deliberate foul play, so maybe they should be sent off for 20 minutes and put on report? And then the ban can be reviewed after that, until we find a way of making the breakdown safer. But it will never be foolproof; you’re not going to avoid accidental collisions with the head. Rugby is a collision game. We just have to look to make it safer.”

Julian Salvi, a fine jackaller in his time with Brumbies, Leicester and Exeter, and now defence coach with the Chiefs, believes the new zerotolerance approach places greater emphasis on team-mates who arrive at the ruck before the jackaller.

“What we’ve seen [with O’mahony and Fagerson] is that the initial cleaner has not done his job properly or has been a bit slow, which then gives the jackaller the opportunity to try and pilfer the ball – and the guys who are very good are able to almost ride that first storm,” Salvi says. “Then the secondary support – like O’mahony and Fagerson – are arriving, perhaps not as quickly as they might have liked, and it’s an open shot.

“It is easy for me to say, but if Hoggy [Stuart Hogg, the Scotland full-back] had done his initial job a bit better then Fagerson probably would not have felt like he would have had to go into the breakdown as hard as he did.”

Matt Everard, the breakdown coach at Wasps who has helped develop the skills of Jack Willis, one of England’s best jackallers, agrees that speed is of the essence if these dangerous pile-ups are to be avoided.

“What we focus on at Wasps is about winning the ‘race’ to the ball [after a player has been tackled] between the jackaller and the supporting attacker, on both sides of the ball,” Everard says. “As a supporting attacker, if you win that race, then you win the clean-out.

“Where possible as a support player, you want to avoid a contest over the ball that involves removing a threat. There are a few reasons for that. Firstly, the obvious one is the speed of the ball. If you arrive quickly and you don’t have to clear anyone out, then the ball should be pretty quick. Secondly, it preserves energy; arriving quickly and low to the ground, as tiring as that might feel, is far more efficient than having to shift a body off the ball.”

One solution, Easter believes, would be to enforce the immediate

‘You are not going to avoid accidental collisions with the head. Rugby’s a collision game’

release of the ball on the floor. If the ball-carrier releases as soon as they are tackled – as the law dictates – then the duration of the ruck, and therefore the jackal, would be shorter. Rucks would be over and done with by the time the likes of O’mahony and Fagerson got the cavalry charge up and running. It would result in a quicker game, too.

Salvi agrees in theory, saying: “A quick release could do it; it’s just about how you manage it.” But he highlights that isolated ball-carriers would currently prefer to concede a holding-on penalty than give up the ball to a jackaller. Conceding a penalty, despite the loss of territory, allows defences to regroup and organise themselves; the sense of unknown that comes with conceding a turnover is far less preferable.

Whatever the answers, it is clear that the current situation feels untenable. Easter points out ruefully that he is “just pleased I’m not playing the game at the moment” – striking words that should give World Rugby pause for thought.