After Wales’ loss to France and that red card, and after a long lie down in a dark room, it’s seems just long enough to take less passionate look at what went on in that tackle. The immediate reaction from the fans, understandably, was that the referee, Alain Rolland, was wrong, at least in the severity of the punishment. But then when do fans and refs ever agree?

The BBC’s Alastair Eskyn was neutral enough to post the IRB’s 2009 directive concerning dangerous tackles on Twitter.

The directive and memorandum are quiet long and you may view them at the link above. The relevant part concerning dangerous tackles is summarised here:

1. The player is lifted and then forced or “speared” into the ground. A red card should be issued for this type of tackle.
2. The lifted player is dropped to the ground from a height with no regard to the player’s safety. A red card should be issued for this type of tackle.
3. For all other types of dangerous lifting tackles, it may be considered a penalty or yellow card is sufficient.

The IRB’s laws of the game (2011) are available to download from www.irblaws.com and if you do so, you’ll to see that Rule 10.4 is quite clear, the team sanctions for tackling a player whose feet are off the ground, or for lifting a player off his feet and driving him to the ground in either case would be a penalty kick. However there is no law that says a player must be sent off for dangerous tackle, the official has the option of warnings or the cards. The concern here is that the laws of 2011 do not incorporate the directive from 2009. Instead of trying to define the various types of tackle, wouldn’t it be clearer to simply state that a player must not be tackled unless one or more feet are in contact with the ground? This would, in theory, prevent any airborne assaults and this reduce the risk of anyone landing on any part of their body which may lead to neck or spinal injuries.

Now the question is what informed Alain Rolland’s decision to immediately order Warburton from the field. The replays do not seem to show Warburton forcing Vincent Clerc to the ground. It could be argued that he dropped Clerc but as Warburton was in the process of falling a drop would hardly have been deliberate, and if Warburton had held on – or been able to hold on – he would have landed on Clerc, potentially injuring him seriously.

Warburton has now been banned for three weeks, reduced from six for ‘good behaviour’ – surely proof if it were needed of the IRB’s guilty until proven innocent stance. And to underline this lack of consistency seen throughout the pool stages of the World Cup, Ospreys’ Justin Tipuric has also been banned for three weeks for a similar tackle on Munster’s Ian Keatley. Inconsistent? Well, yes, Tipuric was sin-binned at the time and in imposing the ban, the citing commissioner decided the referee was wrong and a red card would have been appropriate. So it appears that even some citing commissioners aren’t prepared to back referees on the park, and appear to be willing to retroactively hand down punishments that would seem to be at odds with the original in-game penalties.

So if as a player you make what is considered to be a dangerous tackle, you may be receive a yellow card and 10 minutes in the bin, or you may be yellow-carded, sin binned, and then subsequently banned, or you may be sent off and then banned. According to the laws, no account should be taken of the intent of the tackler, whether or not it was intentional or malicious, the decision of the referee should be objective. Fine, but should the punishment also then be objective? If intent is not being taken into account then why are the sanctions against the players varying by such degrees?

Regrettably, the events of the first semi-final have focussed attention away from the game itself, and away from the final to a degree, and mired rugby in the minutiae of the law book. Rightly, the IRB want to reduce the occurrences of dangerous tackles, unfortunately the framework of the game hasn’t yet caught up with that intention. Apparently contradictory laws, or at least a lack of clarity and cohesion between law and directive and implementation have marred the game and robbed the Rugby World Cup of potentially it’s greatest final.

Location:Portsmouth,United Kingdom

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