Loose Pass: Time for World Rugby to punish simulation and the Premiership’s marmite fan experiment
Two fans at Saracens v Gloucester game on Saturday.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with faking injuries, the away fans’ blocks and the Andrea Piardi mistake…
When only a ban will do
The footage of the incident involving Nolan le Garrec being floored by a vicious headbutt delivered by one of the tardigrades inhabiting Bruce Devaux’s jersey is nothing short of hilarious in isolation.
But it is time that someone at World Rugby begins to take a look at how to define what counts as simulation and what does not. Fortunately for all, Le Garrec’s theatrics did not result in sanction – the total indifference from the match officials coupled with the heady mix of ire and mirth in the stands was, in isolation, the best response the game could deliver.
Yet barely a month ago, Will Skelton saw red for a challenge on Romain Briatte after the latter flung himself with similarly histrionic style. Ollie Lawrence ended up apologising publicly for milking a clash of heads with England team-mate Alex Mitchell against Northampton earlier in the season, which saw the latter yellow-carded and the former having a bit of a Ronaldo smirk on his face as Mitchell departed.
It is difficult to always know where pain starts and stops in a contact game at full speed. But this is one of the rare moments where slow-motion replays, far from exacerbating contact points and turning harmless collisions into game-changing decisions, could actually help. Even to the naked eye, injury-milking is generally marked by a time-lag between the moment of supposed contact and the body reacting to the neural decision to perform pain, as opposed to the actual bodily reflex to injury. But nowhere is this more apparent than in a slow-motion replay, which captures in all its petty minutiae the pause to consider a decision to throw hands up, the hands actually going up, and then further pause before the legs give way and the fell to ground begins.
France star’s ‘proper theatre’ leads to ban calls for ‘absolutely ridiculous’ dive
The replay was shown in Perpignan on Saturday and the inhabitants of the Aime-Giral all had a good laugh. Le Garrec has not done his reputation much good; silly really, considering France’s scrum-half depth chart.
But of the three incidents mentioned here, only one failed to produce a disciplinary action from the officials on the spot, when all three were pretty clearly ham theatre from the players.
Is it time to introduce sanctions? Are we at a stage where players need to miss a couple of games for clear and obvious simulation? Certainly, the actions of Le Garrec were as egregious as can be and have no place on a rugby pitch. This is a problem that can be nipped in the bud if the game wants it to be.
Lukewarm start to the away fan blocks
There’s not been an awful lot of middle-ground opinion regarding the trial of dedicated away fan zones at Premiership matches. On the one side, the traditionalists fearful that segregation will only breed contempt and foment hatred, quickly leading to future Saracens v Gloucester matches being marked by a huge police presence at train stations and pre- and post-match dust-ups in residential areas between the masked gang of ‘Shedheads’ and the red-hat wearing, knuckle-duster sporting army known as the ‘Fezhead Ultras’.
On the other side, the free thinkers, who like to believe we’ve moved on from all that and would simply prefer away fans to sit with a few of their own instead of being mildly repressed by the simple weight of the banter, never mind the quality.
The truth, as always, lies between the two poles. The Gloucester youths whose opening gambit of ‘support’ for their team was to strike up the faithful old reprise of ‘You’re just a s*** Owen Farrell’ in the direction of Sarries’ Fergus Burke did the traditionalists a favour, as did the security guard who felt compelled to intervene and call a halt to the performance. Millwall v Leeds of the 1980s it was decidedly not, however. In the final reckoning, it’s worth noting that not one soul was ejected, never mind arrested.
And those gruff old traditionalists might have been softened by the subsequent and more traditionally-rooted refrains of ‘Glaaaaawwww-staaaarrrrr’ ringing out with a mite more togetherness than would be expected at the StoneX, not to mention the classic – and significantly less abusive – ‘Same old Sarries, always cheating’ song. Which is an effect that Premier Rugby is trying to achieve with the initiative; more audibility for away sides.
The proponents of the scheme have said on a number of occasions that the policy is entirely voluntary, meaning the traditionalists can mingle with the opposing fans at will. And while the start-up chant was hardly salubrious, most of the Gloucester enclosure was populated by fans whose age can’t have been more than half of the unfortunate Burke’s.
Neither side of the opinion will have found a compelling argument to back up its assertions in North London; perhaps a more tense match with full-strength teams and a little local needle will shed some more light on the matter. Although perhaps we already have all the light we need.
Andrea Piardi the lightning rod for a team error and an over-intricate system
Piardi will not be welcome back in Munster soon, after mistakenly forcing the home side to play with 14 players for 14 or so minutes of the defeat to the Bulls on Saturday.
But how many others on that officiating team did not notice the error? The TMO, touch judges, and most pertinently, the fourth official in charge of substitutions and all that admin, all had the capacity to learn of the error, process it, and inform the referee far, far sooner than they did.
Moreover, while Bernard Jackman’s tidy little spreadsheet on X made it pretty obvious, it should be just as obvious that Mr. Piardi is 60 minutes into a game of high-level, high-paced rugby and does not have the benefit of such with which to make his decisions.
It’s a bad error. But the responsibility must be shared among the entire officiating team, while – as Mr. Piardi himself noted in the game – there are a few too many rules at times. For each of the observers who noticed it, there will have been dozens who didn’t. These aspects could also do with flagging on social media, rather than just aiming abuse at Mr. Piardi.
