Women's World Cup

[didds]

the fans paying for tx etc is the dangerous side of the pro game. the pro game needs the £££ to survive for sure.

BUT

Pro sport itself is intrinsically not entertainment primarily.

So we have a very uneasy mix of requirements which may at times be mutually exclusive.

I don't know how to square that circle either.

 

[Lee Lifeson-Peart]

I refereed Yorkshire v Lancashire at U15 a few years ago. I'm glad it was only 25 minutes each way. I was bollocksed! They never kicked a penalty to touch - tap and off we go again in a flurry of pigtails!

It was entertaining.

 

[crossref]

I am against the 20 minute red card idea. The reason being that, to my mind, there are instances whereby a permanent red card (ie no replacement after 20 mins) is appropriate.

but then by implication there are some cases where a 20 min replacement would seem appropriate ?
Like this one?

 

[Phil E]

I disagree, she deserved to go off.
It's really simple, don't tackle or attempt to tackle from an upright position.
Then there wont be any head on head contact.

The message has been out there long enough!

 

[crossref]

it wasn't really about did she deserve to go off (it was a clear RC) but whether someone else might have ben able to come on (after 20 mins)

 

[Phil E]

it wasn't really about did she deserve to go off (it was a clear RC) but whether someone else might have ben able to come on (after 20 mins)

No

Some are suggesting the 20 minutes becasue it ruined the game and it wasnt intentional. Thats all irrelevant in my opinion.

 

[Locke]

I disagree. Fans pay a lot of money to see an even contest that is diminished by 15 v 14 for a large part of the game.

One of the main purposes of punishment is deterrence. If that's the purpose here, I'd suggest other deterrences be used (lengthy ban, loss of match fee, etc)

If we're hell-bent on punishing the team why not go the whole hog? Red card offence = immediate forfeit by offending team & end of game. That'll learn 'em

Shouldn’t a team losing an impact player for 60+ minutes of a game due to opposition foul play factor in to what makes an even contest and what fans paid to see? Why should we give the offending side the potential to come out of the foul play interaction with a better result than the non-offending side for the final 40 minutes of the game? The incentive is going the wrong direction.

 

[crossref]

No

Some are suggesting the 20 minutes becasue it ruined the game and it wasnt intentional. Thats all irrelevant in my opinion.

we had two carded high tackles in that game - one by Eng, one by NZ

They were very similar, it takes a few viewings, and good understanding of the protocols to understand why one was RC the other YC

In terms of the intent, and the technique of the offenders, they are pretty much identical.

Yet one caused a team to play with 14 for 66 minutes, the other caused a team to play with 14 for 10 minutes

Don't you think that the difference in sanction/impact was completely disproportionate to the nuanced difference in the two tackles?

Wouldn't 20 and 10 have been fairer?

 

[Mipper]

but then by implication there are some cases where a 20 min replacement would seem appropriate ?
Like this one?

No I don’t believe so. Because the distinction between permanent and temporary will always remain subjective, just as it is with the choices we have today. Adding in a fourth sanction just increases the complexity.

As for the Red card that we are referring to, I cannot imagine what sort of guidelines would lead to a 20min card, should that have existed.

As it happens I believe that the NZ player should have been red carded too. Herein lies the issue with the 20min sanction. As a group here, we don’t agree on these sanctions, which were awarded by a ref who had a very good game.

if we add even more variables to the decision making of the refs, we just create opportunity for even more issues to arise.

 

[Mipper]

I disagree. Fans pay a lot of money to see an even contest that is diminished by 15 v 14 for a large part of the game.

One of the main purposes of punishment is deterrence. If that's the purpose here, I'd suggest other deterrences be used (lengthy ban, loss of match fee, etc)

If we're hell-bent on punishing the team why not go the whole hog? Red card offence = immediate forfeit by offending team & end of game. That'll learn 'em

I don’t see that the game was diminished in any way. It’s dynamic was altered for sure, and given Englands most recent games against New Zealand you may argue that the Red Card did even the game up!

Whats more, I cannot recall a game that was diminished by a red card. Certainly not at the higher levels - where “fans pay a lot of money”.

 

[SimonSmith]

Shouldn’t a team losing an impact player for 60+ minutes of a game due to opposition foul play factor in to what makes an even contest and what fans paid to see? Why should we give the offending side the potential to come out of the foul play interaction with a better result than the non-offending side for the final 40 minutes of the game? The incentive is going the wrong direction.

Agreed.

I'm not at all suggesting that Woodman was targeted. But when the 20 miniute RC was first proposed, we did discuss the possibility of key players being targeted and teams being willing tio play a player down for 20 minutes if it got rid of a gamebreaker.

The intention here was not the same, but the net effect might have been. England play a player down, get back to 15 20 minutes later. NZ lose Portia Woodman for the game, one of their gamebreakers. If that's justice, I'm a banana*


*kudos available for those who get the reference

 

[Dickie E]

I find it a little offensive to describe some players as "key" or "impact" while the rest are just cannon fodder. Any player picked for representative duties would certainly consider themselves as key

 

[crossref]

A lot of entrenched opinions, here, which I think don't take account of the changes that have been made to RC

For 150 years RC (sending off) was the ultimate sanction, reserved for only the most egregious acts of foul play

And they were very rare, and taken seriously, and the punishment fitted the crime

But now we also give out RC for accidents.

Does the punishment still fit the crime?

 

[Mipper]

A lot of entrenched opinions, here, which I think don't take account of the changes that have been made to RC

For 150 years RC (sending off) was the ultimate sanction, reserved for only the most egregious acts of foul play

And they were very rare, and taken seriously, and the punishment fitted the crime

But now we also give out RC for accidents.

Does the punishment still fit the crime?

You‘re absolutely right about the long history of sending off’s. I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure that red cards only appeared when yellow cards did???

What has changed though is the understanding of the ‘crime’. Or to be precise; the affects of the ‘crime’.

For most of that 150 years the odd punch, high tackle, dump tackle was considered part of the game and unless it was considered particularly ‘egregious’ as you rightly say, it was penalty only, if not simply “play on”.

Like many of you probably, I played during this time, and this approach was just how it was. We knew no different, “tough game”, “man up” etc, etc

But now we do know better. The game has to change, indeed it has changed, and we know that the stricter approach to sanctions has reduced the head injuries, and we need to maintain this trend, not look for ways to lessen it because of perceived intent.

Let’s not forget that the Head Contact Process already allows for playing on after head contact + no foul play. So once we as refs have made the call that foul play has occurred I don’t understand why we need more variables, particularly if they are driven by the fallacy of “red cards ruin games”.

So Crossref, to answer your question; yes, if we determine that the ‘accident’ is also foul play, the punishment does fit the crime.

 

[Mipper]

As a footnote, I do agree that my view here is very entrenched, but I would argue that it is with complete understanding of the way the game has changed during my lifetime - not 150 years ago of course, but certainly from the seventies when I started in mini rugby.

(full contact mini rugby indeed, right from the very youngest )

 

[crossref]

There are endless types of foul play, foul play doesn't mean a RC

In this game we had two very very similar tackles.
In terms of on field sanction

.. one received the same sanction as (for example) a deliberate knock on, or a repeated offside

.. the other received the same sanction as (for example) a bite, or king hit punch, all calling the referee a c****

Too different : One or other of those sanctions doesn't fit the crime .

I understand the reason for wanting to send the player off the pitch, fine with the RC for the player, but I think the sanction on the team for this type of incident or accident is
a too harsh
b too variable (between 1 and 79 minutes a player down)

So standardisimg on 20 seems sensible

(Nb the player doesn't come back on, obv, a sub can come on)

 

[Mipper]

There are endless types of foul play, foul play doesn't mean a RC

In this game we had two very very similar tackles.
In terms of on field sanction

.. one received the same sanction as (for example) a deliberate knock on, or a repeated offside

.. the other received the same sanction as (for example) a bite, or king hit punch, all calling the referee a c****

Too different : One or other of those sanctions doesn't fit the crime .

I understand the reason for wanting to send the player off the pitch, fine with the RC for the player, but I think the sanction on the team for this type of incident or accident is
a too harsh
b too variable (between 1 and 79 minutes a player down)

So standardisimg on 20 seems sensible

(Nb the player doesn't come back on, obv, a sub can come on)

”Foul play doesn’t mean a RC” ? Not sure why that needs stating on a referees forum, is it inferred by something I typed?

Anyway, your reference to the two tackles and the comparison to other yellow and red card offences is a good one. My “entrenched” view is that a head on head clash instigated by the poor tackle technique of the tackler is worse than calling the ref a bad name.

So to me, both are worthy of a permanent expulsion.

 

[crossref]

We aren't even discussing permanent expulsion, take that as read
The idea is that a replacement could come on after 20

 

[didds]

I disagree, she deserved to go off.
It's really simple, don't tackle or attempt to tackle from an upright position.
Then there wont be any head on head contact.

The message has been out there long enough!

This. 100%.
When the edict came through several years ago now about high tackles and head contact, including seat belt tackles at colts we s[pent pre season ingraining into our lads that no tackles were to be above belly button height, so as to remove any chance of cards of any colour. That left the possibility of offloads but we backed our defence systems to handle that - and rationalised that all sides may be doing something similar (a gamble? maybe but it seemed generally to be the case across that season) and we also worked a LOT on our fast paced, offloading/popping/quick clearances so that if we leaked some tries through not preventing an offload we would score more similarly anyway.

That was esconced very quickly into our lads. So if a bunch of 17 year old community game players can "learn" fully pro players can. Which thus suggests that the chest high smash tackle is continued on a risk v reward basis and possible cards are an accepted outcome.

 

[Mipper]

We aren't even discussing permanent expulsion, take that as read
The idea is that a replacement could come on after 20

Sorry that I wasn’t sufficiently clear there.

To clarify; my view is that both head contact instances in the final were worthy of a red card, and no team replacement after 20 minutes. That is; a red card as it stands today.

No fudged, in-between compromise thing
Red card = permanent expulsion for the player, no replacement at any point.

In case I have been equivocal in my previous posts, I am NOT supportive of the 20 minute idea for any reason.