Owen Doyle: Coaches and World Rugby must address blight spoiling the game

When Fiji coach Vern Cotter questioned the red card handed out to Albert Tuisue by referee Mathieu Raynal he spoke volumes.

Unintentionally no doubt, but he was speaking to the very serious divide that exists in the thinking around these shoulder-powered assaults. There are too many people in high places of influence who consider these to be part and parcel of the game and that they are legitimate actions, not red card offences.

What elements of concussion, dementia, and CTE do they not understand? Maybe in years to come they’ll realise that their contribution to the game was not at all what they thought it was.

Let’s imagine for a moment that their point of view was to hold sway – it would wipe out the amateur game in short order. Already under pressure for participants, many more would run a mile from rugby and parents would divert their kids to other sporting pastimes. Many, now fearful of letting them play, are already doing so.

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Raynal’s decision did appear, though, to get the approval of his assistant, Tual Trainini, who a week earlier mysteriously opted for only a yellow card, when the 134kgs (21 stone in old money) of USA’s Siaosi Mahoni slammed into the unprotected head of a Kenyan opponent.

Inexplicably it was not even cited, which simply confirms the hopeless divide. It’s past time for World Rugby to speak up. They need to tell us where they stand, wherever that is, to sanction referees for poor performances and to overrule citing commissioners whenever necessary.

It was impossible, however, not to agree with Cotter about several very marginal decisions which went against his team – they were just too close to call. One penalty for advancing in front of a kick was simply nonsensical.

Referees are now seemingly intent on becoming precision engineers, picking up every little peccadillo, rather than showing any feel for events. They turn a blind eye to absolutely nothing, even so-called offences which have had no bearing on the game. In near constant ‘I’m playing advantage’ mode, they then return for the sanction unless a try is scored. We saw more of the same from Karl Dickson in Cork last Thursday.

There is some experimental tinkering with advantage in the southern hemisphere right now. It’s only allowed for three phases, then it’s over or the referee returns for the sanction at that point. It’s a formula that will appeal to some, but in a fast-moving game it’s impossible to write a one-size-fits-all formulaic prescription.

It would be far, far better to go back to what it says in the book and let the ref judge when a tactical or territorial advantage has been gained. The penalty count would reduce dramatically and there’d be a heck of a lot more continuity of play, both of which are sorely needed. Not to mention the time which would be saved.

Here’s a rich irony – Thomond Park is nowadays never filled to capacity. Yet, it would not have been big enough to hold the 40,000-plus who turned up to watch Munster deliver a famous victory over the South Africans in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

It seems that the Cork support has been unwilling to travel in great numbers to Limerick, feeling perhaps disenfranchised with Limerick becoming the centre point for rugby – until last Thursday that is.

Results and league position have not helped and the style of play has done nothing to excite. It’s clear that Graham Rowntree and his fellow coaches are doing their utmost to change all of that, although Rome will take more than a day to build. It will prove a lot more than a pity if Munster can’t get above the qualifying line for next season’s Heineken Cup.

Let’s hope that these two cities can unite fully behind the team, their support has proved magical in the past, it is needed again right now.

From an armchair ride in Cardiff last weekend, Wayne Barnes needed all of his vast experience for the cauldron of Marseille, where South Africa and France served up more dynamite.

Not for the faint-hearted, it included one red apiece. Pieter-Steph du Toit cleared out Jonathan Danty extremely dangerously, then Antoine Dupont violently flipped over Cheslin Kolbe when he was high in the air. These horrible incidents are just more examples of where the game is going, or, rather, has already gone.

In Murrayfield, Scotland had a wonderful chance to register a first-ever win over New Zealand. Hopefully, they won’t find any reason to point the finger at Irish referee Frank Murphy; the truth is that they just couldn’t finish it off. Murphy looked well organised and had a solid match, getting several key decisions right. Four tries in the opening 15 minutes might well be some sort of record, and it certainly set the scene.

Finally, to the Women’s World Cup Final, a terrific game which was well handled by Hollie Davidson, who must now be the best referee in Scotland. Nearly inevitably, it had its own red card, when New Zealand’s star winger, Portia Woodman, was knocked into oblivion by a head-on-head challenge from England’s Lydia Thompson. Woodman has her medal, and that’s how she knows her team won, she remembers nothing of the match.

There is a solution to all of this – it’s very much the responsibility of the coaches to change players tackling and clearing-out techniques, and then for World Rugby to accompany that with more severe, meaningful suspensions. Given the foul state of play, it beggars belief that there’s no appetite for either.