>> Eastmond: We need rethink over red cards
KYLE Eastmond has called for greater understanding and empathy from referees when it comes to handing out red cards for inadvertent high shots.
Diminutive England and Leicester centre Eastmond was twice sent-off in 2018 – once while playing for Wasps against Harlequins in February and again last month for Tigers at Bristol – on both occasions serving lengthy bans at crucial points of the season.
Both offences were correctly punished under current laws relating to contact with the head. However, Eastmond, 29, feels the way those laws are framed offers no understanding of the split-second nature of rugby or the ever-increasing speed of the game.
Referring to his most recent dismissal against Bristol for a high shot on Ian Madigan, Eastmond told The Rugby Paper: “Everything’s split -second and the late adjustment he made caught me out, but it is what it is nowadays.
“To be brutally honest, I’ve made thousands of tackles and if you get two wrong, you get two wrong. You try your best to make the right sort of tackles but if someone dips down and their knee is on the floor, what can you do?
“I’m not going to be able to change my approach in that split-second so you connect just above the shoulder and are deemed to be responsible.
“We’ve got to remember we are playing rugby and people get things wrong, whether it’s the tackler or the guy going into contact. But there are plenty of things going on in matches so I won’t worry too much about getting something slightly wrong.”
Eastmond’s heartfelt comments come in a week when the RFU’s latest injury audit revealed that the average severity of match injuries rose to 37 days in season 2017/18, the second consecutive season the figure has been above its expected upper limit.
For the third year in a row concussion emerged as the most common injury of all, accounting for 18 per cent of all injuries to the ball carrier and a whopping 37 per cent of all injuries to the tackler, highlighting the tackle as the game’s most critical area.
Dr Simon Kemp, the RFU’s medical services officer, believes even tougher sanctions should be levied, with tackle height lines potentially being drawn on shirts.
Kemp said: “We believe the threshold for receiving a card for a high tackle is currently too high if we’re going to change player behaviour and reduce concussion.
“Currently around the world you are three times more likely to see a card for a deliberate knock-on than for a high tackle. We, and World Rugby, don’t believe the sanction of yellow or red cards occurs frequently enough to change player behaviour.”
However, Eastmond counters: “I think we’re going a little bit over the top, not just with the high tackle but other things, and we’ve got to have a little bit more understanding and empathy because, at high speed, there are going to be mistakes.
“People are changing direction so quickly, it’s not black and white, and there has to be a lot of thought process around what is intent and what isn’t.
“It’s good to see them trying to look after players but we’ve got to be careful not to ruin the physical aspect of the game.”
Eastmond added: “Players are quite honest and everybody is trying to do the right thing and play the game fair. One mistake shouldn’t cost a team or a player at the highest level and we just need to be careful how far we take these things.”