Now it’s Sharks turn in hot water over Ioane incident
Hot on the heels of World Rugby expressing their disappointment at the way the George North incident was handled, news broke on Friday that another Concussion Management Review Group had been set up, this time to investigate the way that Sale Sharks handled the knock to the head suffered by TJ Ioane in last weekend’s match against ‘Quins.
When World Rugby issued their report, there was the usual bit of mutual back-slapping: they were grateful to the RFU for the steps they’d taken to avoid a repeat of the North situation, and Premiership Rugby boasted of the ‘new standards’ they were setting in dealing with concussion, saying that player welfare was the No.1 priority for them and the clubs. Now, just a few days later they’ve instigated another investigation.
Irrespective of the CMRG’s findings in this case, in the wider world rugby has a bit of a bad smell about it right now. Never mind the great things that the game does for young people – they are as nothing compared to headlines about high tackles and concussion.
the one hand it’s excellent that these issues are now being taken seriously, but that message might just get lost among the other stuff about how dangerous rugby appears to be, and the suggestion that the administrators have played fast and loose with player welfare in the past. The game needs to get a grip on this, and soon.
BT Sports’ Rugby Tonight surpassed itself last week when they had referee Wayne Barnes explaining the ins and outs of the change relating to high tackles. Barnes is a qualified barrister, so you’d expect him to put forward a strong defence of the change and the ‘application guideli- nes’ which were recently issued, and that’s exactly what he did.
He made the changes sound eminently sensible, and of course, arguing against any measure designed to make the game safer is a risky business, but there were a couple of areas where questions do need to be asked.
Barnes made it sound as though nothing has actually changed, referring to previous appearances where he’d emphasised the duty of care that players need to demonstrate, but there was a real change in January, and introducing it in midseason wasn’t ideal. All I can think is that World Rugby had been advised that they needed to take action to reduce the possiOn bility of litigation should a player get seriously injured. Why else would there be such urgency to get the change out there?
Barnes was definitive on some of the examples that were highlighted, on which offences would receive cards, but I think the problem is that there aren’t enough really good refs out there, and I bet we will see decisions made which contradict what he said. However, it was also great to see him reiterating that big hits that are legal are not in danger through these changes.
When the discussion turned to the Brad Barritt / Richard Barrington double hit on Geoff Parling – the one where the disciplinary hearing adjudged that referee Ian Tempest had got it wrong – both Barnes and Ben Kay were sensitive towards Tempest’s relative inexperience and the uniqueness of the incident. However, they didn’t touch on the role of the TMO, who compounded the situation. Reading the detailed judgements, the referee initially was just going after Barritt, but it was the TMO who called his attention to Barrington.
Barnes is right about the uniqueness of the situation, because even now it’s splitting opinion – who’s to say that the panel got it right in the end? It seems to me that the confusion might equally be down to a measure introduced in haste, leaving the officials to catch up with how to manage it. Once again, it hasn’t been been World Rugby’s finest hour.
As predicted there was a raft of announcements last week about players switching clubs, showing that things can move very swiftly when they need to! Once players are within the final six months of their contract, an approach can be made, and it’s incredible that complex negotiations can be compressed into just a few days. The present system is a joke. It’s time to put an open and transparent system in place.