Loose Pass: Dissecting a few nuanced officiating moments from the weekend

Lawrence Nolan
Loose Pass

This week we will mostly be dissecting a few nuanced officiating moments…

The missing piece in the assessment

A week of relative downtime for many following the attrition of the Six Nations weekends, but not for the players, for whom this time of year must be a perpetual bewilderment of tournaments.

No sooner has the Six Nations/Premiership Rugby Cup ceased, than in we go into the Premiership/United Rugby Championship/Top 14 for a week, backed up by a fortnight of European rugby, then another domestic interruption, then Europe again… the patchwork nature of rugby’s calendar continues to make it awfully hard for a more casual or more early-days-in-getting-to-know-the-sport fan to keep up properly.

Anyway, relative downtime this week past. Yet still enough rugby to produce many a talking point, and still a maintenance in the quality of the overall rugby on show.

And, it seems, in the learnings of the officials and their analyses. Not one week after Freddie Steward was given an entirely arbitrary red card for a moment of contact he could not avoid did history repeat itself, with Saracens scrum-half Ivan van Zyl clattering with his head into the arm of Harlequins‘ Danny Care, who had also turned his body away at the last second – once he realised he was not going to get the ball first – from what was set to be a doozy of a collision.

Care instantly knew there might be a Steward-like problem, as he picked himself up five metres behind the point of contact and spread his arms in innocence, with a facial expression reflecting that he knew exactly what had just played out. Common sense prevailed, fortunately for Care.

Where it did not prevail, unfortunately, was in letting the clearly dazed Van Zyl play another three minutes before departing for an HIA. Luke Pearce understood there might be a problem and was explicit in asking the Saracens doctor, but in the current climate, for anyone, from the Saracens doctor to the TMO to anyone else in some form of capacity who had seen Van Zyl slump to the ground, to let him even consider playing on was madness.

Did we spend too much time and energy considering whether Care had committed foul play and not look enough at Van Zyl? Possibly. Vigilance needs to be maintained on the players with the heads as well as those making the tackles; you can be concussed by something that is not foul play as well.

It’s not only direct contact

Meanwhile on Sunday, Exeter’s Dan Frost can probably count himself quite lucky he only sat on the naughty step for 10 minutes, rather than being banished from class altogether.

His was not a rugby collision with Orlando Bailey, it was as cheap and late a shot as you could imagine. He was saved a red card because, according to Karl Dickson, the contact was not directly to Bailey’s head.

Fair enough according to protocols and such, but, even at full speed and naturally more so in slo-mo, the whiplash effect on Bailey’s head was quite something.

Is this not every bit as dangerous as head contact itself? After all, the problems of early-onset dementia and the other ailments currently forming the basis of the lawsuit causing rugby an existential crisis are caused by multiple smaller contacts rattling the brain, just as much as the collisions that hit the head as well. Shaking the head like that is just as potentially harmful.

In Loose Pass’ view, it’s bizarre that Frost’s ugly late hit was only yellow-carded when there have been a plethora of red cards dished out for collisions far, far less cynical and nasty, sometimes unavoidable, but simply because they have contacted the head directly rather than just shaken it around. This is the kind of hit that needs more censure – the same with Luke Northmore’s on Owen Farrell.

It’s not over till it’s over

If this week’s column comes across as picking apart officials for getting things wrong, perhaps we should redress the balance.

Two comparable incidents, one from Leicester v Bristol and one from Bath v Exeter, with tiny details separating them, with the correct call made in both.

Bristol’s Magnus Bradbury thought he had scored a try, but referee Matthew Carley quickly set him right, pointing out that Anthony Watson had hung onto his left ankle with the tenacity of a dog to a favourite toy in bringing Bradbury down short of the line. Thus the tackle was complete, so Bradbury had to release the ball and pick it up again before diving over.

Bath’s Joe Cokanasiga was also on his way to the corner, with only Josh Hodge in his way. The latter did what every coach at beginner’s school tells you not to do, and put his head on the wrong side of the tackle involving over 100kg of remarkably fast winger.

Anyway, that his head was there meant that his inside arm was unable to wrap around Cokanasiga, meaning that as the pair went to ground, not one arm or hand from Hodge was holding on to his target. Cokanasiga was therefore able to ‘do a Bradbury’ and didn’t need to release the ball first.

Two lessons: ball-carriers need to pay attention to what’s happening around their ankles as they go to ground, while for tacklers, there are more benefits than just reducing the risk of concussion by getting year head on the right side of a tackle…

READ MORE: WATCH: A weekend of butchered tries in the Premiership and United Rugby Championship

Bath Danny Care

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