Springboks: Nick Mallett claims ‘ref realised’ he was ‘harsh’ on Canan Moodie and ‘corrected’ his error
Ex-Springboks coach Nick Mallett (inset) and referee Andrea Piardi.
Nick Mallett believes Springboks centre Canan Moodie benefitted from some goodwill from referee Andrea Piardi in Saturday’s Rugby Championship Test against Argentina at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham.
South Africa finished the tournament on a high when they clinched a hard-fought 29-27 victory which resulted in winning the prestigious Southern Hemisphere tournament for the second year in a row.
It was a momentous occasion as it was the Springboks‘ first-ever back-to-back Rugby Championship title victory.
A big talking point
However, a big talking point following the match was why Moodie did not receive a second yellow card for a deliberate knock-on later in the half opening half after Piardi had sent him to the sin bin shortly after the kick off for head contact in a tackle on Los Pumas right wing Juan Cruz Mallía.
Mallett was appearing on the Talking Boks podcast with Brenden Nel and the show’s host mentioned an incident from Saturday’s United Rugby Championship encounter between the Bulls and Leinster where the home side’s number eight JJ Theron was left prone on the ground after a flying tackle from the Irish province’s flanker Will Connors, who charged head-first into his opponent.
The referee in that game issued a yellow card to Connors but the incident was reviewed by the bunker to see if it met the red card threshold. A few minutes later, it was revealed that the yellow card would stand as there was some mitigation with Theron bending slightly ahead of contact and Connors soon returned to the fray.
Mallett, who was commentating on that game for SuperSport, felt that the wrong decision was made and that Connors should have been red carded. He used that incident as a comparison for Moodie’s yellow card after his collision with Mallia which he feels was much less severe than Connors’ offence.
He believed, though, that Piardi was lenient on the Boks flyer when he failed to punish him for his second indiscretion later in the Test.
“One hand on the ball, that means it’s a deliberate knockdown,” said the former Boks head coach. “Any head contact with force where the player accelerates into the tackle and only starts, he [Connors] wasn’t bent at the waist initially.
Rassie Erasmus: Canan Moodie ‘was lucky’ as close referee calls could have ‘changed the game’
“He only started bending at the waist as he came into contact, which isn’t good enough because his head was still at the same level as Theron’s head. I mean, that was a blow to the head, head on head with force. And there wasn’t enough mitigation in my eyes for that to be a yellow card.
“I thought he should have got the red card with 20 minutes and someone else should have come on the field in his place. But that’s just my opinion. The TMO had a different opinion.
‘People are getting yellow cards where there’s little force’
“If you think about what happened in Moodie’s (case), they are so careful about head contact. That’s why I get angry when you see something with force not getting properly sanctioned. Because people are getting yellow cards where there is very little force.
“And yet because there is head contact, they’re going for the yellow card. So there doesn’t seem to be consistency between what happened in the Bulls game and what happened with Moodie’s, and I think the ref realised that.
“I think he realised, ‘Perhaps I overreacted there. And perhaps I got him off to the letter of the law. I’m possibly correcting what I’ve done’.
“But when he saw the same player go with one hand, well, the other hand was trying to get there, but it was definitely the left hand which knocked the ball down.
“I mean, that was far more a yellow card to my mind than the first one. And I just think he thought to himself, ‘Listen, perhaps I was a bit harsh with the first. I’m going to even it out by giving a penalty here and not a yellow card.
“Because you are 100 per cent correct. I mean, they have just said anything. And his palm was up. His hand is up. But that’s not irrelevant anymore.
“If you are stopping the ball from going to an opponent who is in a position to continue to score a try, that is called a deliberate knockdown. So I thought he was very, very lucky there not to get another yellow card. And then it would have been deemed a red card.
“And we would have had to get someone else onto the field. So that’s my view. I don’t think I’m being biased from a South African point of view because I’m being quite harsh on Moodie.
“But I really did think in the Bulls game that that guy [Connors] shouldn’t have stayed on the field. He should have gone off for what he did.”