Loose Pass: A red card and a rocky road

This week we will mostly be talking about red cards and the USA’s rocky road…

A very pale sort of red

The debate about rugby’s disciplinary crackdown is unlikely to go away soon, not least because of the ever-growing dishonesty creeping into it all, nor because of the asinine idea that marketing the game as a product should somehow trump punishing fundamental laws of player safety.

For Ian Foster, coach of the All Blacks and therefore implicitly in the frame as a leader of an honest and open culture, to deny Jordie Barrett’s offence is appalling, as is the notion that New Zealand would be punished by being a man down for 20 minutes and then stocked up again with Damian McKenzie.

Mr. Foster stated he thought Barrett was off-balance in the air, which is feasible, but what is not feasible is the need to kick forward to rectify this. Barrett could also quite easily have simply put his leading foot down to land on two feet rather than one. The reason he did not, as far as we could see, would be the danger of being pulverised by the oncoming Marika Koroibete as a consequence. A fair concern personally to Barrett, but doing something outside the laws of the game to prevent being tackled hard is, as far as we can make out, still outside the laws of the game and needs to be punished as such.

But no, ‘long conversations’ need to be had, a ‘case’ will be put together, further debate off the pitch, blah blah blah… as if there wasn’t enough of this during the Lions tour. It’s so tiresome.

Anyway, while Barrett may – or may not – be punished, it’s pretty obvious the All Blacks weren’t on the day. While it is a testament to their strength in depth, it’s also a mockery of the seriousness of the red card, and especially a mockery of what is supposed to be a crackdown on red-card disciplinary measures.

The gripe for some time now is that playing much of a game a man down is such an insurmountable task, by and large, that red cards are destructive to competitive match integrity, rendering the spectacle a little dull, leaving teams with hills too steep to climb. A rough thing indeed if a team is on the end of a borderline call.

Yet the countering gripe is quite clearly that a team which has a man sent off should actually be disadvantaged as a consequence. Playing a man down for 20 minutes is something many teams manage on a weekly basis. Given the current climate of defensive intelligence as well as the wealth of freshness on the average bench, being a man down for 20 minutes is quite easily planned for.

And so what we have is what rugby is so very good at: a fudge stuck so in the middle that it serves almost no purpose to anybody; an ultimate sanction with very penultimate consequences.

What would we prefer? We’d prefer a red card to remain the ultimate deterrent. While Barrett’s kick was not malicious, it could easily have been avoided and there should be a consequence for reckless and dangerous play that exceeds a delayed substitution, or a magnified yellow.

Only that way will we eventually see offences such as Barrett’s eradicated. The spectacle which the new 20-minute rule is there to protect would most likely be even better protected that way in the long run.

Eagles in trouble

The USA’s loss to Canada on Saturday in the World Cup qualifying play-off was the first time in 13 matches. Granted, this is also due to a turnaround in Canada’s administration and preparation, but it seems the USA is struggling.

Head coach Gary Gold called the performance ‘unacceptable’, ‘disappointing’ and ‘100% our own doing’ but he has also recently talked about the fragmented nature of the Eagles’ set-up, the difficulties of finding and retaining players and the cash-strapped position of the union.

Major League Rugby was supposed to address this problem to an extent, but the national team is struggling both from the lack of funding and from the lack of a good, competitive international tournament to sharpen itself up in. CEO Ross Young is currently campaigning hard for a return of the Pacific Nations Cup, which featured the Pacific Islands, Japan and Canada but the USA’s status as a northern hemisphere nation is restricting the windows it can compete in.

With the rugby regions of the world currently in flux – not least with South Africa now aligning with Europe – it is feasible to think that rugby could be aligned into regions based around longitude rather than latitude, which would do the USA, Canada and other South American nations a favour.

But the more immediate problem for the USA is this: lose to Canada in the second leg (or win by less than 13) and the road to France 2023 would then be a rough one indeed. Failure to qualify for France 2023 would be catastrophic for a nation which, less than three years ago, was seen as a possible stirring giant.

Loose Pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan