Simulation creeping in? Ex-Wallaby fears for rugby after shot on Joseph Suaalii leaves experts ‘flabbergasted’
Gideon Wrampling's tackle on Joseph Suaalii and an insert of ex-Wallaby Morgan Turinui.
Former Wallabies back Morgan Turinui fears for the future of rugby after a high shot on Joseph Suaalii escaped harsher punishment.
During the Super Rugby Pacific clash between the Waratahs and Chiefs this weekend, Suaalii was on the wrong end of an ugly tackle by opposing back Gideon Wrampling.
Initially, the officiating team believed that the tackle was not foul play and called play-on before the TMO flagged the incident for referee Angus Mabey.
Upon a review, Mabey deemed that the tackle met the yellow-card threshold and duly issued the sin-binning, sending the challenge to be reviewed by the Foul Play Review Officer.
However, Wrampling escaped further sanction as the yellow card was upheld and not upgraded to a red card. The Chiefs centre was also not cited for his actions, with Super Rugby Pacific confirming that “there are no disciplinary matters resulting from Round 9”.
“I can’t abide”
Experienced commentator Sean Maloney was left puzzled by the decision of the match officials.
“This one, again, I can’t abide. Running across in cover, he is up, always up, never down and in fact, he lowers to chin Suaalii even more significantly,” he said on Stan Sport’s Between Two Posts.
“It’s my opinion about it – others might see it differently in the same way that they might have thought that that ball was out from Foketi – but that is right in the chops at pace coming up and in. How is that not deemed any more significant than what was originally, I’m told, going to be just a penalty.”
Wallabies legend Matt Burke agreed with Maloney that Wrampling’s actions warranted a red card, stating that it was a “big miss” by the officials.
“Well in a way that’s why we have that bloke upstairs to get that right. I thought direct contact to the head, that should have been upgraded to the red card straight away,” Burke added.
“It was summed up well on the sidelines… when they put all the circumstances together, the first contact was on the jaw and it’s done Joseph at the same time.
“I see that as a big miss. It should have been have been 10 in the bin and upgraded to a red.”
🟨Just a yellow* (for now)#WARvCHI pic.twitter.com/HMhGG0KlWW
— Steve Lenthall (@steve_l15) April 11, 2025
Moloney was perplexed that Wrampling escaped further sanction, comparing his tackle to Hunter Paisami’s against Moana Pasifika, which resulted in a three-week ban for the Wallabies midfielder.
“It has me flabbergasted,” he said.
“I’ve just remembered back to Hunter Paisami’s six weeks down to three [ban] against Moana Pasifika where he’s basically on the ground that low trying to stop [the carrier], he’s not standing upright, chinning a bloke who’s 6’4″.”
As for Turinui, he believes that had Suaalii milked the challenge more, the outcome would have been different for Wrampling. He added that had it been a smaller player, like a scrum-half, who was then taken for an HIA, then it too would have been another outcome.
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Turinui worry for rugby
He worries that this could become a trend in rugby, which he hopes will not be the case.
“The starting point is, are they always legal or are they always illegal?” Turinui said in response to Moloney.
“Hunter Paisami does everything you can possibly do to make a legal tackle. It’s hard to compare them but I think the big one there is I would have thought if that’s an 80kg halfback who goes down and needs an HIA then that play is getting cited.
“We gotta stop being influenced by what happens after the contact. Forget about HIA, whether the player goes down, so should Joseph Suaalii go down there?
“I don’t want to live in the world where that happens. He stays on his feet, he toughs it out, and he plays well – that’s what we want. We love the fact that he’s ok but I guarantee that if he hits the deck and stayed down that would be a different result.”
Maloney added: “I don’t see there’s any consistency in those two examples between Paisami’s and Wrampling’s.”
Turinui, replied: “No two tackles are the same right? So you can make a case that Suaalii is down a little bit, he is bent at the hips and knees, but the player low coming up and out of it into an illegal position means it’s hard to give much in the way of mitigating factors.”
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