World Rugby Head Contact

First topic message reminder :

As there have been numerous cases of head contact during the World Cup so far. I thought a dedicated thread to such incidents might help to ensure we can debate it more objectively and free up other threads for rugby related chat.

https://resources.world.rugby/worldrugby/document/2023/03/22/932e873f-afc4-4fcc-a769-bae0ac660689/2303_Head_Contact_Process_EN.pdf

The above link outlines the protocol to be undertaken taken by world rugby officials when head contact occurs.

https://passport.world.rugby/match-day-staff/citing-commissioner-training/red-card-decision-making/

And the second link is the red card decision making process.

You can disagree with the process - perfectly reasonable. What is wrong is people saying the decisions are incompatible with the process. they are not. the process and protocols are being followed correctly

the process being wrong is a different issue.

TJ wrote:Perhaps not but they are listening to commentators who do not understand the process and who are claiming inconsistencies that are not there because of this lack of understanding.  One recent game the commentator said - "there was no intent, just a clumsy challenge no foul play!" FFS intent is not a part of the prcess.  Your actions are

And i don't see many people on here arguing about intent in terms of the current laws. See a few arguing the laws should reflect that.

TJ wrote:You can disagree with the process - perfectly reasonable.  What is wrong is people saying the decisions are incompatible with the process.  they are not.  the process and protocols are being followed correctly

the process being wrong is a different issue.

Clearly they're not. Leading up the WC and for a few years now many of the challenges that are getting off scot free and with a yellow in this tournament we're classed as reds. We saw them trying to start that with Farrell who in the end was too high profile for it to fly. We now have analysts and commentators second guessing the process to work put what they will end up with. A good example is this Kriel one where they've said indirect contact so not high force however as I've posted with the link that's not strictly correct. Direct vs indirect is 1 aspect to consider not the reason in total.

Direct shoulder to the face last night was a yellow as they apparently decided it wasn't dangerous ... they may be following the process but it's not being applied consistently.  There is no way that the impact from Curry's incident was more dangerous than that or some others we've seen.

The reality is the process is only a guide to decision making (which it can only be, of course) but it seems they are going out of their way in some instances to avoid giving reds. Yes these decisions rely on a degree of subjectivity but clearly the vast majority of people are seeing incidents that they would have expected to be red based on previous experience which aren't now - we haven't all lost the plot suddenly.

No - its the commentators ignorance feeding this. Classic example in the current Aus / Portugal game. commentators all saying it will be red. clear yellow only as it was low force, passive tackle, probably indirect contact.

Well no tj. Classic example is the aus Portugal where we've seen a shoulder to the head which has been red for the last 18 months at least. There has been a switch this WC for whatever reason, probably wr not wanting casual viewers to see loads of reds and think wtf.

I am now thinking that if this is how we're going curry, vunipola and Farrell should have avoided bans.

And with that you just show that you do not understand the crtiteria. It was obviously only a yellow under the protocol.

shoulder to head is NOT an automatic red - it depends on a whole load of factors which are worked thru in the process.

TJ wrote:And with that you just show that you  do not understand the crtiteria.  It was obviously only a  yellow under the protocol.

shoulder to head is NOT an automatic red - it depends on a whole load of factors which are worked thru in the process.

Yes I'm aware. I was the one who posted a link proving you wrong on indirect always meaning low impact.

TJ wrote:And with that you just show that you  do not understand the crtiteria.  It was obviously only a  yellow under the protocol.

shoulder to head is NOT an automatic red - it depends on a whole load of factors which are worked thru in the process.

And yet unless I misunderstood you seem to have been claiming indirect automatically means yellow?

Yes you misunderstand. Indirect contact would normally be yellow. I can see situations where it could still be red but in 99% of cases it makes it yellow

Once again - go and read the protocols and process and listen to the refs

You may think the protocol and process is wrong but in this WC is being applied consistently and well. Not one pervese or wrong call. not one.

TJ wrote:Yes you misunderstand.  Indirect contact would normally be yellow.  I can see situations where it could still be red but in 99% of cases it makes it yellow

Once again - go and read the protocols and process and listen to the refs

You may think the protocol and process is wrong but in this WC is being applied consistently and well.  Not one pervese or wrong call. not one.

Again. I've linked to them. I don't think they're wrong. I think there's a directories from wr this WC to increase tge tolerance of high hits.

Nope - you said indirect so must be yellow - think you're trying to backtrack now ...

TJ wrote:Yes you misunderstand.  Indirect contact would normally be yellow.  I can see situations where it could still be red but in 99% of cases it makes it yellow

Once again - go and read the protocols and process and listen to the refs

You may think the protocol and process is wrong but in this WC is being applied consistently and well.  Not one pervese or wrong call. not one.

Apart from Kriel you mean?

No 7&1/2 wrote:

TJ wrote:Yes you misunderstand.  Indirect contact would normally be yellow.  I can see situations where it could still be red but in 99% of cases it makes it yellow

Once again - go and read the protocols and process and listen to the refs

You may think the protocol and process is wrong but in this WC is being applied consistently and well.  Not one pervese or wrong call. not one.

Again. I've linked to them. I don't think they're wrong. I think there's a directories from wr this WC to increase tge tolerance of high hits.

I agree with this comment. I'm sure World Rugby want their stars on the pitch and not in the dog house. And I am also sure that desire is fully understood up and down the organisation.

The inconsistency for me has been in when (and how much) mitigation has been applied. The bunker team may have been applying the framework consistently as they see it (and presumably feel that they have) but the result has been that we’ve seen mitigation applied to acts of clear foul play - which the framework (and the bunker feedback on the Curry red) indicates should not happen.

So Ezebeth has just done EXACTLY what Curry did hit just a penalty.

Honestly Curry needs to appeal it on his record.

Did you hear them trying to get out of it by claiming a Tongan player pushed him into it - what a load of ......

I must have admit, the inconsistency throughout the tournament has been a bit of a joke.

I'm really struggling to get engaged in the whole thing, it's been the worst world cup I can recall.

Mapimpi out of the RWC, he had a blow out fracture to his cheeck.

That is unfortunate for him, he would slmost certainly been one of thrir starting wingers.

I don't imagine it will effect SA that much though, as they have a lot of good wingers.

You can argue it’s the process or the application of the process

All I can see are tackles involving shoulders directly to the head resulting in yellow cards where for the last two years, in club rugby at least, they have been reds.

It’s like world rugby has spent the last two years trying to scare players into hitting lower and now the world cup is here they are giving serious amounts of benefits of the doubt as they seem to be wanting to protect whole teams from being knackered by one individuals recklessness.

The trigger point was Farrell. Given a yellow as a ban meant compromised World Cup for him/England but a blazer at world rugby said “hold on, the blind eye protocol doesn’t come into effect until the World Cup starts. Not our fault the Eejit can’t tackle, give the red as should have been done”. Correct processes were retrospectively applied, tackled deemed a red so was upgraded.

Then at the World Cup Curry nuts a player in the face and the bunker people were confused and thought the blind eye protocols didn’t apply to English players following world rugby throwing the book (correctly) at Farrell. So they applied the process as followed over the last two years and red carded Curry.

The curry card is the only inconsistent call since the cup started. The rest have been consistent. Just not consistent with the last two years.

Oh. That's cleared that up then tiger. Ta!

Most welcome

Sure guys - the whole thing is a conspiracy against poor england who should be allowed to make high tackles direct to the head.

Crry was a nailed on red. The only change in this WC has been the bunker system. Its the england players have been trained to make high tackles to prevent offloads. Ireland and SA have trained to make low tackles so they do not get cards

I am incredibly frustrated at this narrative you guys keep trying to build. a nar4rative based on not understanding the process and protocols

There is a differnce between a tackle that was never legal - ie no attempt at a wrap or allways high and a tackle that is an attempt at a legal tackle that goes wrong and that differnce is recognised in the process

TJ wrote:Sure guys - the whole thing is a conspiracy against poor england who should be allowed to make high tackles direct to the head.

Crry was a nailed on red.  The only change in this WC has been the bunker system.  Its the england players have been trained to make high tackles to prevent offloads. Ireland and SA have trained to make low tackles so they do not get cards

I am incredibly frustrated at this narrative you guys keep trying to build.  a nar4rative based on not understanding the process and protocols

There is a differnce between a tackle that was never legal - ie no attempt at a wrap or allways high and a tackle that is an attempt at a legal tackle that goes wrong and that differnce is recognised in the process

Yes, fans of all nations are annoyed that England rightly got reds and now the laws are being interpreted differently

Curry was a nailed on red, but then apparently it isn't when you see the Etzebeth tackle.

Anyone else incredibly frustrated at being told we just don't understand the process and protocols?

As tigertattie pointed out (and I'm pretty sure he's not an England fan) - the application is at odds with what has been the norm for the last couple of years.

Maybe TJ works in PR for World Rugby?

The thing is this isn't anything new. Citing protocols, law interpretations and how the referees and tmo's interpret it has always been, and will always be a contentious issue.

For one, every circumstance is unique, no matter how we try to find parallels between incidents, it is nigh on impossible to do.

We can say it is similar, but yet it is really a unique circumstance surrounding every event.

Then you have an infinite number of referees, Assistant referees, TMO's, citing commissioners and judges, how do we ever get consistency when every single person rule in their own unique interpretation of any given incident.

In my humble opinion the best thing is not to get involved in a debate about these laws and incidents as it isn't going to be consistent ever, I just don't see how it can be.

Heaf wrote:Anyone else incredibly frustrated at being told we just don't understand the process and protocols?

As tigertattie pointed out (and I'm pretty sure he's not an England fan) - the application is at odds with what has been the norm for the last couple of years.  

Maybe TJ works in PR for World Rugby?

Very much so, I'm an Ireland fan and I fully understand the laws of the game and I also fully know that what has been happening during this world cup is not consistent with the way rugby has been refereed for the last 2+ years.

England fans have talked about Curry as that is the one that stands out to them most with decisions that have happened since (that one actually was reffed the way I would have expected it to be) but there have been so many decisions throughout this that would have been stone cold reds all day long in the last few years that have been only yellows.

Honestly I have to wonder if TJ can't see that do they work for World Rugby or have they just not watched any club rugby recently. At some point when pretty much every fan on here from all nations is telling you that they disagree maybe it's time to stop essentially calling them stupid and wonder if your view is correct.

This furore around VAR in the Tottenham Liverpool match is the reason I see taking the bunker option totally behind closed as a mistake.

No 7&1/2 wrote:This furore around VAR in the Tottenham Liverpool match is the reason I see taking the bunker option totally behind closed as a mistake.

I think one possible way to do it would be for the bunker to work like a kind of super-TMO and prepare a package of the angles used in both slowmo and real time, and perhaps a graphic of the framework with their recommended interpretation - but to allow the ref the final say. That would be consistent with how the wider TMO engagement works, but taking advantage of the time available to make for a more efficient communication.

That's a great idea which would speed it up, make it public and put it back more centrally into the main persons hands. WR would never go for it!

No 7&1/2 wrote:This furore around VAR in the Tottenham Liverpool match is the reason I see taking the bunker option totally behind closed as a mistake.

The old system of hearing the referee and the TMO look at the various angles, talk it over, explain their reasoning, then deliver the card, was a perfectly good system that didn't need changing.

The bunker leaves viewers in the dark.

I liked the idea of the bunker in principle, but it has not worked and just leads to clear RCs bring downgraded.

I hope they listen to the fans feedback from this tournament!

Duty281 wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:This furore around VAR in the Tottenham Liverpool match is the reason I see taking the bunker option totally behind closed as a mistake.

The old system of hearing the referee and the TMO look at the various angles, talk it over, explain their reasoning, then deliver the card, was a perfectly good system that didn't need changing.

The bunker leaves viewers in the dark.

Out of the 2 I agree completely. The only benefit it has for me is that for the people in the stadia you're having to wait less for the game to get going, as they don't get to hear the conversation anyway. Or at least they didn't when I last got to an international.

No 7&1/2 wrote:
Out of the 2 I agree completely. The only benefit it has for me is that for the people in the stadia you're having to wait less for the game to get going, as they don't get to hear the conversation anyway. Or at least they didn't when I last got to an international.

The idea of the bunker was to effectively take the decision off the critical path and let the game continue. Personally, as a massive nerd I actually quite enjoy the to and fro with the TMO but casual fans (and journalists) apparently hate it and the pressure to make the decision quickly was leading to mistakes.

The bunker is serving a subset of those purposes - it's allowing the game to continue and presumably the decisions are being taken under less time pressure. But by taking the decision out of the hands of the ref and not communicating the full thought process, fans are baffled and the decisions feel out of kilter with the principle that the ref is in charge.

In every other use of the TMO, the refs have sooner or later taken charge of the process (something that Wayne Barnes has usually pioneered) and it has led to better and more explicable results. Same thing needs to happen here, in my view: the ref needs to be given the final decision and the bunker process should be tweaked to enable that.

The bunker was by my understanding brought in with the purpose of speeding the game up. Meaning if the referee saw it was definitely a yellow but couldn't decide if it was a red within 2 replays or something that it can then go to the bunker, have 8 mins to be reviewed and not be under pressure on time or from the crowd.

In theory it sounds like a great system and I'm sure if used properly it could be. I have been in Ravenhill watching replays on the big screen during a TMO decision and people are screaming for blood for a decision that favour Ulster even when it's clear it's not. In those situations I'm sure on occassion the ref is influenced by the crowd in those 50/50 calls. Therefore not having that is a good idea.

Theres 2 issues I have really with how it is working now

The first is transparency, we have moved from a system that was essentially fully transparent because you could hear the convo (on tv at least) to a decision that is made with no transparency by an unknown figure. Regardless of how honest or good the system is this will always lead to people thinking that something sinister is happening behinds the scenes when a decision is made they don't agree with.

The 2nd is with it being maybe a bit of a crutch. It feels like it could and maybe is being used as a way for referees to pass the decision onto somebody else. They don't have to take the heat of the players or crowd and can just say it was made by the bunker so don't blame me. Some of these decision it feels like the ref could give a red within a couple of replays.

It's natural, people don't want to be the bad guy. It happens in my own job, often we get referrals from front line colleagues where they know the answer is one the customer won't like but they refer it anyway to be able to make it so that they don't have to take the heat for the decision. It's complely understandable I just don't know that if in rugby it's a good thing.

Going to ping this forward, as there were clearly a couple of incidents in the QFs where the apparently more lenient interpretations were applied:
Argentina forward driving into a ruck and making contact with Tompkins head
Etzebeth yellow card v France for the hit on Atonio.

The Etzebeth one is the sort of tackle that has seen straight red cards for about 2 or 3 seasons until this RWC - not malicious but him still committing a chest to chest tackle on a player who was only slightly leaning forward, and with head to head contact as a consequence of their body positions. Not that dissimilar to the one Curry picked up a red for in the first game, or several others. The bunker report said high degree of danger but mitigation, which must have meant Antonio's lowered body position...

Now, I'm perfectly happy with World Rugby being a little more lenient on this type of tackle, as there was clearly no intent on Etzebeth's part to strike Atonio's head, but they haven't communicated this change clearly. I think that saying 'mitigation' has been a cop out, and that they really need to be talking about the degree of danger more - high tackle with a shoulder or arm to the head and neck area should be a high degree of danger and default to a red card (only mitigated by a clear and unexpected change from the tackled player), secondary head to head contact (i.e. after the initial collision of shoulder to chest or chest to chest) maybe a moderate degree of danger (as the speed and force of the collisiona has been reduced) should be starting at yellow.

The most direct comparison I can think of for Etzebeth's was Farrell's red/yellow/red card.

Both players were coming in high from the side at an angle that would probably have avoided head contact but for a sudden movement by the ball carrier. In Etzebeth's case Atonio made the change, in Farrell's it was because another tackler tipped the ball carrier off balance.

In Farrell's case that was accepted as mitigation by the citing commission only for WR to overturn it because the tackle was never legal and therefore mitigation should not apply.

In Etzebeth's case, he was also high (and it was reported by the bunker as having been a high degree of danger), so I am not clear as to why mitigation was allowed.

It's been reported that WR has adjusted things in the light of representations from the players, but it seems that the threshold for a red card has risen enormously over the course of the tournament.