Why no red card?

[Gracie]

It's been more than 24 hours since the Pro 14 final and having had time to reflect I'm still mystified by Nigel Owen's decision to only award a yellow to Rob Carney for a dangerous tackle that saw him take Stuart Hogg out in the air while following up his own kick. Hogg was injured out of th game having landed badly following the incident.

I've seen suggestions that NO may have made the decision becuase Hogg landed shoulder rather than head first; somehow I can't see this as being an appropriate call, but all thoughts welcomed.

 

[Rich_NL]

Guidance is: landing on back or shoulder is yellow, head or neck is red. The latter is more dangerous because of the risk of neck injury.

Hogg seemed to be badly concussed, having landed unfortunately, but that in itself is not a reason to escalate the expected sanction.

 

[Decorily]

* Leinster Referee
*Leinster Supporter

I thought it was a fair call.

 

[Drift]

Just seen it, YC is the right call. Lands on his shoulder/back.

 

[L'irlandais]

His name is Rob Kearney. I don’t believe Nigel Owens bottled the decision. Rather, fair play to him for not be influenced by an aggressive reaction from the home supporters. He assessed the collision on the basis Blue15 had his eye on the ball. He avoided judging the incident entirely on the outcome. The fact that Stuart Hogg was concussed is unfortunate, but not a reason to escalate to a Red Card.

As a Munster supporter I genuinely wanted Glasgow to win that game. But the sourgrapes from the Warriors head coach after was a bit hard to stomach and changed my opinion on the outcome. I thought Leo Cullen was closer to the truth. He said «*Referees are inconsistent, some times it’s play on, sometimes Yellow and sometimes Red*». RK came back on with 4 minutes on the clock, so the difference between Red or Yellow was minimal anyway. Glasgow had already let the game slip away and needed a miracle at that stage, missing the conversion certainly didn’t help. Leinster’s head coach was right in saying a team needs to adapt to the consequences of the referee’s decision, nothing more.

Glasgow will need to look elsewhere to attribute the blame for their defeat:
1. Kicking the ball back to opposition far too often,
2. Not managing to adapt play in the greasy conditions,
3. Or insisting on going up the middle right to the bitter end, when it clearly wasn’t paying off in points.
Not to mention, 4. running the ball from inside their own ingoal, WTF? Take your pick, but leave Nigel out of it.

 

[Gracie]

Based upon your feedback, I've looked at the incident again on video, at the appropriate law and the ref guidance.

The law says:

Challenging players in the air - Law 10.4(i)

Play on – Fair challenge with both players in a realistic position to catch the ball. Even if the player(s) land(s) dangerously, play on
Penalty only – Fair challenge with wrong timing - No pulling down
Yellow card – Not a fair challenge, there is no contest and the player is pulled down landing on his back or side
Red card – It’s not a fair challenge with no contest, whilst being a reckless or deliberate foul play action and the player lands in a dangerous position

The ref guidance (April 2015 - Laws Representation Group) says:

Challenging players in the air - Law 10.4(i)
The options given were:
Play on – Fair challenge with both players in a realistic position to catch the ball. Even if the player(s) land(s) dangerously, play on
Penalty only – Fair challenge with wrong timing - No pulling down
Yellow card – Not a fair challenge, there is no contest and the player is pulled down landing on his back or side
Red card – Not a fair challenge, there is no contest and the player lands on his head, neck or shoulder

Based upon the outcome, the laws and the outcome (unlss I am using outdated guidance) then it has to be a red card. While NO noted that he thought the impact was shoulder, the law and guidance don't appear to change the direction that a RC was the appropriate route. That said, the footage from various angles show head and shoulder hitting the ground together. Kearney having his eye on the ball is immaterial because he was not contesting for the ball.

L'irlandais, for clarity I was not disputing the outcome of the game, simply seeking views on this one incident; as with any game, there was plenty of scope for dialogue on other issues. I thought both coaches comments on the incident were reasonable with Rennie noting; "I'll let officials decide that sort of stuff" when asked about the incident and recognisng that Warriors were not clinical enough which seemed reasonable.

 

[Blindside]

Based upon your feedback, I've looked at the incident again on video, at the appropriate law and the ref guidance.

The law says:

Challenging players in the air - Law 10.4(i)

Play on – Fair challenge with both players in a realistic position to catch the ball. Even if the player(s) land(s) dangerously, play on
Penalty only – Fair challenge with wrong timing - No pulling down
Yellow card – Not a fair challenge, there is no contest and the player is pulled down landing on his back or side
Red card – It’s not a fair challenge with no contest, whilst being a reckless or deliberate foul play action and the player lands in a dangerous position

The ref guidance (April 2015 - Laws Representation Group) says:

Challenging players in the air - Law 10.4(i)
The options given were:
Play on – Fair challenge with both players in a realistic position to catch the ball. Even if the player(s) land(s) dangerously, play on
Penalty only – Fair challenge with wrong timing - No pulling down
Yellow card – Not a fair challenge, there is no contest and the player is pulled down landing on his back or side
Red card – Not a fair challenge, there is no contest and the player lands on his head, neck or shoulder

Based upon the outcome, the laws and the outcome (unlss I am using outdated guidance) then it has to be a red card. While NO noted that he thought the impact was shoulder, the law and guidance don't appear to change the direction that a RC was the appropriate route. That said, the footage from various angles show head and shoulder hitting the ground together. Kearney having his eye on the ball is immaterial because he was not contesting for the ball.

L'irlandais, for clarity I was not disputing the outcome of the game, simply seeking views on this one incident; as with any game, there was plenty of scope for dialogue on other issues. I thought both coaches comments on the incident were reasonable with Rennie noting; "I'll let officials decide that sort of stuff" when asked about the incident and recognisng that Warriors were not clinical enough which seemed reasonable.

Where i would disagree with regards your analysis was that he did have his eyes on the ball (as you point out) he kept his eyes on the ball as he was attempting to catch it, attempting to catch it makes it a contest, had Hog not been there he was travelling at a speed and angle to have caught it, the jump he made (below Hogs) was in an attempt to catch it. Did he intentionally take Hog out in the air, i dont think so.

The issue is that these incidents are unavoidable because you cannot look away from the ball if you seek to jump and catch it, or even catch it, you can then only analyse the resulting incident which is often unintentional, so the outcome is then merely based on good or bad luck. Jumping for the ball is a fantastic skill, im not convinced the unavoidable potential outcomes without any malicious intent are acceptable though.

 

[L'irlandais]

You are correct in stating that Dave Rennie said «*I’ll let the officials decide that sort of stuff.*».

For me, eyes on the ball is material, especially if RK had a reasonable chance of competing for the ball.
Rugby is all about that, fair competition for the ball.

 

[Gracie]

Where i would disagree with regards your analysis was that he did have his eyes on the ball (as you point out) he kept his eyes on the ball as he was attempting to catch it, attempting to catch it makes it a contest, had Hog not been there he was travelling at a speed and angle to have caught it, the jump he made (below Hogs) was in an attempt to catch it. Did he intentionally take Hog out in the air, i dont think so.

The issue is that these incidents are unavoidable because you cannot look away from the ball if you seek to jump and catch it, or even catch it, you can then only analyse the resulting incident which is often unintentional, so the outcome is then merely based on good or bad luck. Jumping for the ball is a fantastic skill, im not convinced the unavoidable potential outcomes without any malicious intent are acceptable though.

Blindside the intent is not part of the decion it is the outcome - the YC by NO says that there was not a fair challenge and there was no contest; the only issue then is the landing; NO clealry decided the landing was on his shoulder. Unless, the guidelines that I have are out of date, then I can only conclude he made an error.

 

[Blindside]

Blindside the intent is not part of the decion it is the outcome - the YC by NO says that there was not a fair challenge and there was no contest; the only issue then is the landing; NO clealry decided the landing was on his shoulder. Unless, the guidelines that I have are out of date, then I can only conclude he made an error.

My argument is that IMO there was an attempt at a fair challenge, the interpretation of a fair challenge appears to be that both players must have an almost equal opportunity to have caught the ball, they must be at an equal height in the same space and have left the floor at the same time, they must have challenged for the ball with equal effectiveness. Although you believe you are capable of this as a player, you sometimes get it wrong. He got it wrong but there was no intent

I understand how it is managed.

The fact that intent is not part of the decision makes the law of questionable value. In that a player attempting to do everything correctly can be sent from the field due to the outcome. Therefore the laws of the game in this instance are not capable of keeping a player safe, as two players could do exactly the same thing for exactly the same reasons with the exact same intent but the fact one player did it better than the other may lead to one being injured and one being sent from the field with a red card.

So there are a few levels of discussion......was the decision correct regards implementation and is there soemthing wrong with the way this law is implemented, in that, if players are allowed to jump for the ball in this way, they can never be kept safe as its an accident waiting to happen. Is it a reasonable risk?

 

[Treadmore]

My argument is that IMO there was an attempt at a fair challenge,

In which case not even a YC was deserved!

Gracie has this spot on - the law is clear enough (for once).

 

[SimonSmith]

https://twitter.com/PremierSportsTV/status/1132365323074711553

It's red for me.
No realistic chance for the ball - he's right underneath Hogg.
Hogg lands with shoulder and head simultaneously.

 

[buff]

An attempt at a fair challenge isn't good enough. The player must put himself in a position to legitimately contest the ball. An attempt that puts the player under the catcher and tips him over is dangerous play.

 

[crossref]

For me it was a RC ..

 

[Blindside]

An attempt at a fair challenge isn't good enough. The player must put himself in a position to legitimately contest the ball. An attempt that puts the player under the catcher and tips him over is dangerous play.

This is true....... the point is this can be totally unintentional and not knowingly reckless. So a player can feel he is going to put himself in a position to legitimately win the ball, not only contest the ball could get sent off, or indeed seriously harm an opponent. The laws of the game cannot protect the player adequately because a player doing everything in his power to contest within the rules fails to secure possession. There may well be a extremely serious incident that changes the laws of the game.

 

[L'irlandais]

For those suggesting a Red Card I would be interested in knowing what Law reference you cite to support your decision.
And for those saying eyes on the ball is irrelevant, I say
[LAWS]9.4. A player must not intentionally prevent an opponent from having the opportunity to play the ball, other than by competing for possession.[/LAWS]RK was competing for the ball.

 

[Gracie]

For those suggesting a Red Card I would be interested in knowing what Law reference you cite to support your decision.
And for those saying eyes on the ball is irrelevant, I say
[LAWS]9.4. A player must not intentionally prevent an opponent from having the opportunity to play the ball, other than by competing for possession.[/LAWS]RK was competing for the ball.

The law and guidance references are in my earlier comment (No 6), whether Carney was competing or not is, as so often, a subjective call, but NO clearly thought he was not competing fairly because otherwise, under the law and guidance notes referenced, there would have been no YC. Add that to NO's comment that he believed Hogg landed on his shoulder, which according to the law and guidance equates to a RC and you have my thinking. I'm not sure what the obstuction law (9.4) connection is in this scenario.

 

[SimonSmith]

Play on – Fair challenge with both players in a realistic position to catch the ball. Even if the player(s) land(s) dangerously, play on

Penalty only – Fair challenge with wrong timing - No pulling down
Yellow card – Not a fair challenge, there is no contest and the player is pulled down landing on his back or side
Red card – Not a fair challenge, there is no contest and the player lands on his head, neck or shoulder

NO says yellow, so clearly not a fair challenge or viable contest.
Have a look at Hogg's head - simultaneously makes contact with the ground as his shoulder. Head impact? Red.

 

[L'irlandais]

The law and guidance references are in my earlier comment (No 6), ... I'm not sure what the obstuction law (9.4) connection is in this scenario.

Your post #6 says 10.4; the Foul play law has been renumbered to Law 9. As you say 9.4 has nothing to do with it. I am no longer disputing your reasoning, merely trying to find a Law reference to support it.

[LAWS]10.4 a, b and c
An offside player may be penalised, if that player:

Interferes with play; or

Moves forwards towards the ball; or
Was in front of a team-mate who kicked the ball and fails to retire immediately behind an onside team-mate or an imaginary line across the field 10 metres on that player’s side from where the ball is caught or lands, even if it hits a goal post or crossbar first. If this involves more than one player, then the player closest to where the ball lands or is caught is the one penalised. This is known as the 10-metre law and still applies if the ball touches or is played by an opponent but not when the kick is charged down.
Sanction: The non-offending team can choose either:
Penalty at the place of infringement; or
Scrum where the offending team last played the ball.[/LAWS]

 

[Dickie E]

https://twitter.com/PremierSportsTV/status/1132365323074711553

It's red for me.
No realistic chance for the ball - he's right underneath Hogg.
Hogg lands with shoulder and head simultaneously.

thanks for posting the video. And I agree with RC