Sir Steve Hansen slams ’embarrassing’ scenes during 11-man Wallabies victory: ‘How can we allow a game to degenerate’
Referee Andrea Piardi and an inset of Sir Steve Hansen.
Former All Blacks head coach Sir Steve Hansen says that yellow cards for head knocks are killing the game.
His comments come off the back of Australia’s 42-38 victory over South Africa in Perth, with four Wallabies sent to the sin bin in the last 12 minutes of the Test match.
Captain Harry Wilson and centre Hunter Paisami were both yellow-carded for high tackles on Malcolm Marx and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu respectively, with the latter being cited. Scrum-half Ryan Lonergan and back Joseph Suaalii were both carded for professional fouls.
Sir Steve Hansen slams embarrassing scenes
Hansen took issue with the number of cards Andrea Piardi dished out during the match but emphasised that the referee was not to blame as they are simply following World Rugby’s protocols.
“How can we allow a game to degenerate because of head knocks? Now I would understand if they were straight-out swinging arms or deliberate, but not one of them was,” the 2015 World Cup-winning coach said on the Rugby Unity podcast.
“There was even one in the Black Ferns-England game, and the ball carrier drops their head below their hips or to hip level; there’s no responsibility at all for the ball carrier to look after himself or herself.
“One of the charters of the game is to have a fair contest. Well, it’s not a fair contest at 11 people versus 15. It’s just ridiculous. It’s embarrassing to watch it. Again, we had Mr. Telecom out there with his phone. Like, surely in today’s world, we can get the little things right.”
Like many other New Zealand and Australian pundits, Hansen suggests that rugby union should copy rugby league’s protocol of putting incidents on report instead of sanctioning players in-game.
“If those head knocks are such that we feel like we have to do something about it because of the injuries in the game… This is the thing that gets me; it has already happened. So put it on report in another game; we see that all the time, and it keeps the contest alive,” he continued.
“If it’s serious enough to be more than on report, then okay, fine. But half of these are just rugby contacts. They’re collision sport contacts.”
Referees are not to blame
He said that Piardi and referees weren’t to blame for the number of cards and sanctions. He also argued that all the responsibility lies with the tackler and not the ball carrier, something he believes should be changed.
“The sad thing is the ref will be getting told he did a great job because he stuck to the protocols. We can’t blame him; we’ve got to look at the protocols because it’s not right,” Hansen added.
“It’s embarrassing, but what it’s also doing is turning people off rugby. I’ve spoken to at least 12 people today, and every one of them has mentioned that they’re getting sick of watching rugby because it’s just turning them off. You’re trying to bring them back and say it’s still a good game and blah blah blah, but it’s hard to argue because this is just a debacle and it doesn’t need to be happening. There are so many other things we could be doing.
“Yes, I agree. We have to be responsible around looking after players, but so do players, and if I’m a ball carrier, I can’t duck my head late and expect not to cop one in the head. Some people can slip off their right or left foot really, really late, and it’s just impossible not to get caught out. So, whose responsibility is that?
“Let’s turn around and say, ‘Well, how do we fix it?’ We teach them to anticipate better. And we do that at a young age so that when they get to the levels that they’re at, they’ve got better anticipation. We’re still going to get contact, and every time we get contact in our game, you’re off. It’s been like that for a while now, but no one’s doing anything about it.”
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Ewen McKenzie’s damning review
Former Wallabies head coach Ewen McKenzie was even more damning in his review of what unfolded in the latter stages of the Test match in Perth. He also rued the communications failure which meant that Piardi was able to talk directly with his TMO during the game, with a phone needed to be brought on for the referee.
“We can sit here and we can every week we can talk about the commercial upside and the potential of a World Cup in Australia and America and all this, and yet we got a sh*t show that we’re going to ask people to watch at a critical moment,” he said.
“You get a sh*t show like we got in the last 10 minutes; it’s not even a game of rugby. It was desperation by Australia doing stuff. Lonergan goes to the bin because he’s just trying to stop a try. People get desperate, and so we weren’t even watching rugby in the end.
“Everyone was watching the clock and trying to see if Australia could hang on. It’s unnecessary because Steve talks about the responsibility of the ball carrier, but he has no responsibility – it’s all on the defender. We don’t seem to assess. We go, ‘Yeah, there’s head contact. Okay, what was the intent? Where’s the intent?’ If we can’t work it out, sort it out later. If there’s a penalty, penalise it. Otherwise, sort it out after the game.”
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Cards lead to more head knocks
Hansen claims that more head contacts occur when players are sent to the sin bin as they need to cover more of the pitch.
“The worst thing about it, this is the bit that really gets me, outside of causing it to be a debacle, what they don’t realise is that when you get down to two men short, three men short, even one man short, everyone else gets desperate and they start chucking themselves around even more, so there’s more likely to be another head knock because people are trying to cover multiple incidents at one time,” he said.
“You are actually putting more people at risk, I reckon. Just put them on report and move on. If it’s bad enough, send them off.”
He added: “It is ridiculous, and it’s going to kill our game unless somebody at the top of the tree takes some ownership of it… we will be talking about another sport because we’ll all be watching another sport.”
