Sanctions for head contact in rugby have been a big talking point over the past few years and this week saw another incident which has provoked debate.
It occurred during the televised Welsh Premiership clash between Swansea and Llandovery at St Helen’s.
With half an hour on the clock, former Ospreys winger Hanno Dirksen, playing in the centre for the All Whites, picked up from a ruck and carried forward.
As Dirksen went to ground in a collision with Llandovery flanker Griff Evans, referee Stephen Allsop blew up and swiftly delivered his decision.
Speaking to Evans, he said: “He’s slipping quite clearly. You’ve made contact with the head. Because it’s a sudden change of momentum, it’s not going to be a red, it’s a yellow card.”
Evans could be seen shaking his head as he left the field and the sin-binning did seem somewhat questionable as Dirksen had slipped and fallen on to the leg of the Llandovery player.
The incident was then picked up by former Welsh international fly-half Lee Jarvis, who took to Twitter to comment.
He said: “Swansea player slipped to his knees and Llandovery player gets a yellow card for high tackle. Really?
“The Llandovery player set his height for the tackle early and then within a split second that height changed because of the Swansea player slipping.
“That surely has to be accidental with no intent whatsoever and no yellow card in my opinion.
“I’m sure the ref would put his hand up after that one and say he got it that one wrong.”
Long-serving referee Ian Davies added his thoughts, saying: “I would say the tackler is clearly looking to make a legitimate tackle, so not sure what more he is able to do.
“I think everyone agrees we need to eliminate ‘illegitimate’ contact to the head - but we also need to acknowledge that any contact with the head shouldn’t automatically mean foul play.”
Former Wales flanker Jamie Ringer chimed in to say: “Basically penalised the tackler for doing everything correctly.”
Others commented strongly, using words like “farcical”, “shocking” “terrible” and “joke”.
But podcast star Mike Bubbins took a different view.
He said: “I feel bad for the Llandovery flanker, he couldn’t have got much lower, but there was contact with the head. The mitigation of the slip brings it down to a yellow.
“It’s harsh, but it’s correct. The game has to get safer. I’d rather slightly too many cards shown, than not enough.
“I agree the Llandovery boy had zero intent to make head contact, but looks like World Rugby are trying to take the ‘accidental’ decision away from refs to remove confusion.
“Head contact starts with red, can get reduced to yellow. Sometimes that’s going to be very harsh. Like here.”
As for the match itself on Thursday evening, that ended in a 25-20 victory for Llandovery, taking them up to sixth in the Premiership table.
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