Ireland great admits Garry Ringrose got the ‘rub of the green’ after ban is dubbed ‘barely’ a deterrent
Donncha O'Callaghan admits that Garry Ringrose and the IRFU got the 'rub of the green'.
Ex-Ireland lock Donncha O’Callaghan admits that Garry Ringrose and the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) got the “rub of the green” after the centre was handed a three-game ban.
While Ringrose has been sanctioned for three matches – after his sending off for a dangerous tackle on Wales’ Ben Thomas – he will miss just one of Ireland’s Six Nations games as the midfielder is able to reduce his ban by a week with the World Rugby Coaching Intervention Program, aka tackle school.
Additionally, one of the fixtures included in his ban was Leinster’s United Rugby Championship clash with Cardiff during the Six Nations fallow week.
This is where the controversy around the suspension lies as France’s Romain Ntamack was not permitted to use Toulouse’s Top 14 meeting with Clermont Auvergne as part of his suspension and ultimately missed two of Les Bleus’ Six Nations fixtures; the loss to England and the victory over Italy.
Garry Ringrose’s sanction
Speaking on the BBC’s Rugby Union Weekly, O’Callaghan admitted that Ireland and Ringrose were “incredibly lucky” with the suspension and expressed his concerns about the disciplinary process undermining the on-field decisions.
“Look, I’ll be honest with you, you’re right it’s the rub of the green when it comes to these kinds of things,” he said.
“Of course, Ireland were one of the unions that voted against the 20-minute red card and it’s funny how at the end of that game; Bundee Aki was incredible and just being able to have him on the pitch without actually losing one of your back three players as well that it went our way.
“To have this conversation, you nearly have to take the person out of it like there’s no doubt that Garry Ringrose is honest as the day is long, it was a bad error and a mistake on his part but no one sees him as a dirty player in any way.
“I know Tommy [Bowe] was on the BBC for the match and he he actually called it quite early and was saying that he hopes the sanction lives up to what happened on the pitch and to be honest, it hasn’t – which is great for us, to be honest. But like he’s back for Italy and importantly, he’ll be back for Leinster as well as they go into the business end of the competition.
“But you have to think, does it undermine the card itself? Did Wales lose out on an advantage? It holds a massive mirror up to the sanction.
“We were lucky, we chatted to Nigel Owens earlier in the week and he was making the point that things like the tackle school and stuff like that, if we are going to give the bans, we need to stand by them because otherwise, we’re undermining all our officials.
“I think we’re incredibly lucky to have Garry back on the pitch so soon… but to see the way the citing went is for me disappointing.”
Unions gaming the system
Podcast host and BBC rugby union correspondent Chris Jones hit out at unions “gaming the system” to ensure that players do not miss key fixtures and pointed to the fact that it is not just Ireland that have done so successfully.
“I just don’t like these unions gaming the system. I don’t like a union pretending that Garry Ringrose would have been released for that game,” he said.
“Not in a month of Sundays would Garry Ringrose have been released to play for Leinster against Cardiff in the URC a week before Ireland against France – I’m sorry, they can say, ‘Oh, he needed game time’ I’m just not buying it and it is not an Ireland thing because everyone is at it and England have been as bad as anyone because they did it in 2023 with Owen Farrell.
“They tried to pretend and I still can’t get my head around it that Farrell would have been released the week before the Calcutta Cup as England captain to play Saracens against Bristol. I’m sorry, stop taking us for fools.”
He added: “In the same way, there is no way that Garry Ringrose would have been released.
“So I would actually love there to be the jurisdiction from World Rugby for someone else not to get caught up in the league of minutia… and go pull the other one – can we just be a little bit honest with each other here? There is no chance of Gary Ringrose playing in that Cardiff game.
“If the point is to have these bans as a deterrent, then they’re not going to act as a deterrent if Garry Ringrose is a one-match ban and a 20-minute red.
“The whole thing doesn’t look good, does it and doesn’t sit right that Ringrose is barely getting a deterrent at all.”
O’Callaghan agreed that the sanctions have to be harder on the player, particularly considering the devaluation of red cards.
“What we’ve tried to fix is the integrity of the match itself but I think we’re eroding the values of the game – and that just gets thrown around the place – but when you see stuff like this, it’s massively disappointing,” he added.
