After some careful thought about the repercussions a team has to face, due to foul play by individuals in a team, who in most cases really aren’t dirty players and what it actually means for a team to play with 14 men for either 10 minutes and in some cases anything up to 80 minutes, it is clear in my opinion that it needs to be re-assessed.
Think about it this way, a player has a brain fart, let’s take Warburton as an example. He was the inspirational captain for a resurgent Wales side during the Rugby world Cup, and during the tournament led his team by example.Along comes the semi final, everyone is hyper motivated to go out and beat the team in front of them. In one moment of madness, unintentional error, or whatever you want to term it, he recieves a red card and his whole team has to suffer because of it, for 62 minutes. That is three quarters of a match.
Now in my opinion Wales would have most likely won that match, had they the extra player, and then considering it was their captain the effect was even more severe.
Last year in the Tri Nations, Drew Mitchell recieved a yellow card for a supposed late shoulder charge, and on replay it showed that it was in fact incorrectly given. He recieved the yellow card on the 28 minute mark, during the time he was off, New Zealand scored 10 points and Australia 3, on the 43 minute mark, he commited another transgression which automatically turned to a red card. From then on New Zealand scored another 17 points which included 3 tries. australia fought valiantly and scored 14 points which included 2 tries during that period.
This in the beginning of the Tri Nations and at home for Australia. We all know that the Tri Nations matches are mainly decided on home cycles, and for Australia to lose their first home game of two against New Zealand immediately puts australia on the catch up trail for the rest of the tournament.
In the same tournamnet Danie Rossouw recieves a yellow card on the 4 minute mark against New Zealand, it was once again a nothing incident, incorrectly interpreted by the referee. but in this time New Zealand scores 10 points, two tries. Once again the effect it South Africa is on the back foot for the rest of the match.
Now when looking at these three incidents, no matter whether some fouls or transgressions were correctly called or not, the effect is damaging and in most cases the carded team will lose and the fair contest is over.
Solution
When the player transgresses, card him as per instruction from the IRB. I see no problem with that.
But is it fair in the sense of an international contest that fans who pay hard earned money and teams collectively put blood, sweat and tears into their preperations for a match, see a contest effectively over because of one moment of madness?
In my opinion no. Yes let the player who is carded go off as he must be penalised. But don’t penalise the team as a collective for the transgression of one player. Allow the carded team to replace the offender with a bench player for the sake of the fairness of the contest and for the enjoyment of a competitive match up for the spectators.
Sharpen up on the citings of the offenders, and deal with the player on an individual basis.
Ban the player for matches at the level of transgression, not for weeks. Often a player is banned for 6 weeks, but it is at the end of the season, so the ban has no effect. If you transgress at international level the ban must be six tests.Last weekend during the New Zealand vs France final, Rougerie without any doubt in my mind and on clear evidence gouged McCaw and becasue it wasn’t seen, nothing came of it. New Zealand didn’t submit a claim, and from what I understood there is a match citing commissioner at every test match. what happened on sunday? was there no match commissioner, or did they feel they didn’t want to add insult to injury?
Either way, it was incorrect. a player who gouges must rightly be cited and banned according to the IRB regulations.
At the end of the day, I want to see a fair contest, but I also want to see the transgressing players be dealt with, but not at the cost of a collective team who thus far had paid the price for only a moments madness.
Somehow technology has to play a part too. How, I don’t know, but you cannot punish players incorrectly.
A couple of things to address here. First it is correct and should be the principle goal that the fans, who make it possible for this entire business to run, be placed first. This means that you cannot have 14 against 15 for 60 mins.
But you cannot just punish the player because it will lead to the situation where a “hitman” is selected to, for example “get Carter”! You have to also punish the offending team. So I think the obvious solution is that the player gets sent off and is replaced by a bench player, so punishing that player, and then to punish the team by a penalty shot in front of the posts for a yellow card and a penalty try for a red card.
Thus we can still have a contest for the rest of the match while justice is served and we punish intentional, premeditated foul play.
@ Just For Kicks:
The tv ref should have the same rights to advise the on-field referee as the assistant refs. And the referee should consult with the tv ref over all sending off decisions. For example in the same way as for decisions about tries.
“Give me a reason why I should not send player X off for punching” or “Yellow/Red card offense or not” or “Forward pass or not”.
Evening YT, sorry to change the subject a bit, but there is no cricket thread, so I’m going to use this one. What is happening out there, 47 overs, 4 wickets down, and only 205 0n the board. Aweful, now Duminy has just holed out as well, 35 off 58 balls. He and Faf hung around for ages and then gave away their wickets.
3@ The_Young_Turk:Thats exactly what I think
@ Just For Kicks:
Ciao JFK. Is it the last ODI being played?
6@ The_Young_Turk:Yup, 1 all, but SA are going to have to bowl and field out of their skins if they are going to take this one
I’ve just walked in, so I can only hope it is the pitch, but I haven’t seen anything too untoward yet, I must say
2 & 3 @ The_Young_Turk:
Your reasoning makes sound sense!
Right, I’m off to cook a few pizza’s, will be back halfway through the second innings.
8 @ Just For Kicks:
Kickers, I also just walked in, SuperBul is the one who is supposed to handle the Cricket stuff…
… he must be busy, I suppose.
It’s tough to start a new business, and obviously his dedication needs to be there.
Fark, I see the Proteas are 218 / 6 with only 4 balls to go…
Looks like we’re in deep doodoo. Hows our bowling line-up these days? Used to be the strongest part of our game.
The thunder and lightning here in the Panne is heavy… going to unplug my ADSL line now and move over to 3G
Faf du Plessis recons the Proteas are only about 10 runs shy of a good total.
I don’t know… we’ll have to field really strongly and bowl very sharply!
Proteas were 222 / 6 after their 50 Overs
Hopefully the pitch is going to assist us in the Aussie innings.
12 @ The_Young_Turk:
Pitch has apparently slowed down considerably and is very uneven in it’s bounce… so looks like it’s a difficult pitch to bat on.
I’m concerned about our bowlers, they have not exactly set the world alight in the first 2 ODI’s.
Probably more like 30 runs too little…..
@ grootblousmile:
Yip, that’s the impression i’ve gotten. Our bowling seems to be lacking something at the moment. Or put another way, it’s become just as slapgat as our batting!
19 @ The_Young_Turk:
Soon as Duminy was in, the run rate plumeted…
Happy to see that Amla has gotten back into form. Was afraid that the captaincy had ruined him. His run out seemed to have left SA rudderless.
Australia’s innings has just started. Scored 6 runs in the first over but bowler seemed to get some swing out of the wicket.
Australia 11/0 after 2 overs
If we don’t get wickets soon and regularly, we are going to be royally farked over.
15/0 after 3 overs.
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