I don't know about Joubert, I missed the 5 crucial minutes. The other refs were wrong as per the suspensions handed out at disciplinaries.
I have dealt with the argument of "refs always apply discretion": there is a major difference between applying some technical laws liberally and directly ignoring an explicit directive which deals with dangerous play.
OK then - there are two facts here. 1. Rolland made a call that was technically on the money. 2. The call is viewed as controversial by a lot of people because it was not consistent with other decisions in this tournament, and because they are Welsh. These are facts and they are not reconcilable. The game is not best served by taking either on it's own. Simply saying Rolland was right and leaving it there does nothing in terms of improving the game. In a situation where the majority of tip tackle decisions in the tournament were wrong shouldn't everyone actually be looking at why they were wrong instead of waving a memo around on the one occasion where the ref was right?
They were wrong because they didn't apply the memo, which represents the agreed requirements of the iRB Council.
And I have been a police officer for over 20 years at the sharp end where legalistic interpretations of the 'word' written in sterile unrealistic rooms are tested and implemented - at the time and not with the benifit of hindsight. Are you saying that 'should' does not allow discretion?
No regulation forced Rolland to show red, it was his discretionary choice.
Are you suggesting that because I am Welsh that I am viewing this from a bias view?
If so your suggestion would imply that a person from a French family would view things similarly.
Now please, do not quote reams of legal mumbo jumbo to enforce your 'argument', keep it for the courts. We are talking about sport not criminal law.
Exactly. Sporting laws are not drafted with the same care and attention as juridical laws, because if they were no-one apart from lawyers would understand them. it is meaningless to hold sporting rules to a courtroom standard.
Then why did the 6 other spear or tip tackle incidents in the tournement pass by without a red card?
Monsieur Rolland was the only ref to issue a red for this, so absolute, infringement.
IRB, get a grip and clear this mess up so an injustice like this must not (no not should not) happen again. Start with the nationality of the ref!
The ref is Irish. He played rugby for Ireland. He was born in Dublin and has lived there all his life, except for a brief stint in the English midlands. Those who want to get all legalistic should be very, very careful they understand the laws of libel better than they understand the laws of rugby.
OK, I've kept out of this so far, because the level of debate is so lamentably below the standard we normally get, being (understandably) affected by posters who are (and freely admit to being) biased against the decision either by nationality or by hopes for a proper challenge to the NZ march to the trophy. This is my view:
There have not been six unpunished tip tackles; there have been three, which went unpunished on the field but punished after the event. An on-field indiscretion can only be referred by the citing commissioner if the later considers that it was potentially a red card offence that was missed, or undervalued, by the referee. Two of these cases were due to a single referee (Steve Walsh) deciding that his own judgement was preferable to that of the iRB - i.e. he went with the views of the dissenting posters on here, and the ignorant drivel spouted by ITV's diabolically uninformed commentariat, to the effect that it wasn't even a PK, let alone a YC. As a result of this poor officiating (for which he has been torn off a strip in the two disciplinaries), he got no further than the quarter finals, and can expect his attitude to be deleterious to the standard of his future gigs - at least until he can demonstrate that he can overcome his ego and accept the decisions of higher authority. The third was Rolland himself - and it was an off-the-ball tackle behind his back, cited and punished through the normal procedures.
I hope we'd all expect that the semi-final and final referees are the best of the bunch. To therefore demand that they continue the recognised errors of their lower-level colleagues seems bizarre; if you really want low-grade referees in the latter stages, or higher-grade referees to officate to low-grade standards, please lobby for that to the iRB - and good luck!
Rightly or wrongly, the iRB has taken medical advice and determined that there is a serious risk to the spine if the weight of a professional rugby player is dropped upon the upper vertebrae. I'm not qualified to assess whether this risk is overstated, but given that it has been foreseen, the dissenters seem to be saying that the interests of the game are best served by waiting until a player is paralysed, issung a life ban to the player who committed the minor PK offence by dropping the victim, and then carrying on as though nothing had happened. I challenge them to ask whether, if it was their son spending the rest of his life in the wheelchair, they'd shrug their shoulders, say that it's in the best interests of the game that no-one gets sued to support the lad's unfortunately future existence, and then return to baying for referees to be punished if they try to stamp out the dangerous practices because it ruins their viewing pleasure.
In the quarter finals, we had a referee castigated for allowing a free-for-all because he was like a rabbit in the headlights, too scared to make the big decisions. Now in the semi finals we have a referee castigated for correctly enforcing agreed safety protocols in the manner that has been recognised since 2009 at least. The dissenters probably don't know that the iRB laws were changed in 2010 because elite refs had been bottling the decision; they took the view that if the ball carrier managed to break his fall with an arm, then he didn't land on his shoulder or upper back. To counter that, the law was changed. The iRB website noted at the time:
Council Amends Spear Tackle Law The IRB Council has reinforced its zero-tolerance stance towards all dangerous tackles by approving an amendment to the Law relating to the spear tackle.
An amendment to Law 10.4(j) has been approved to recognise the defensive actions of the tackled player when the arms are outstretched to break a fall and to further ensure the consistency of application of the appropriate sanction for offending players.
The amended Law 10.4(j) will now read: Lifting a player from the ground and dropping or driving that player into the ground whilst that player’s feet are still off the ground such that the player’s head and/or upper body come into contact with the ground is dangerous play.
The amended Law will operate globally from December 1, 2010
It's unfortunate that most people don't keep themselves current with the lasws of the game they follow. It's even more unfortunate that the category of "most people" includes ex-international players who are paid by broadcasters to inform their viewers about the confusing details of the game. Fortunately for all concerned, the list of "most people" does not include competent refs (Steve Walsh excluded), so mothers can be assured that little Johhny will continue to be protected, even if the majority of players committing foul play have no more idea of why they are being banned than has Francois Piennar or Lawrence Dallaglio.
