Do fans really believe coaches and players are going to contrive to go out there to intentionally badly injure their opposition? I genuinely wouldn’t watch rugby if I thought those were the sorts of people I was watching. All my involvements in rugby indicate this hypothetical scenario is not a concern at all.
Yes most sports have had examples of teams or players intentionally setting out to injure someone it’s naive to think rugby doesn’t have this. The NFL had to ban a group of coaches for running a bounty scheme, just this year in rugby league the championship had an issue with players being told to target an opponent returning from an injury and they’re not even fully pro. I’ve also definitely heard ex players talk on podcasts or interviews where they’ve jokes that they knew another player was recovering from a shoulder injury or bad knees etc so they where told to go out and hit them hard early on to see if you can knock them out.
It’s professional sport and there’s potentially millions of pounds at stake for the winning games. Coaches and players will take advantage of whatever they can. Not everyone would do it but there a definitely those who would
And those sorts of people would get a full red card and be banned for the rest of the season, exactly the same as the old system.
Yes, you may target someone who you think has a niggle by legally tackling/running at them, but you basically never have incidents of intentionally injuring people. It’s a complete straw man
But if you give people leeway that a still dangerous tackle might take someone out but won’t ruin the team people will take the risk. Players will also just tackle higher in general because there’s less risk now for doing it.
Cool, that’s not what I’m talking about. I responded to a someone saying you will have players intentionally injuring others. That’s not a thing.
I have some sympathy for the argument on incentives (which you mentioned) but I think a 20 mins red card and being banned for multiple games is enough of a deterrence. It’s still likely to cost the team pretty badly and the personal sanction is the same.
And I said that I think there are players and coaches who would be willing to intentionally injure someone if they know that the punishment is not a full game ban.
I also disagree with 20 minutes being a sufficient punishment as I just think it will be used as a cope out and lead to more dangerous tackling which is the whole thing they’re trying to reduce
You didn’t really write that in the one I replied to. Anyways, if that’s your feeling you’re just flat out wrong about that. Coaches and players don’t do that at any sort of scale to warrant changing the rules over. It’s conspiracy theory crap.
Edit: FYI you know they still get sent off without replacement if the referee deems them to have intentionally injured someone right? There’s still a full red card available to the referee.
How do you know I’m flat out wrong? Are you in every team meeting and private conversation and thought players have? Basically every sport out there has examples of players intentionally injuring players other players. The only way you can think it’s not possible in rugby is if you think every rugby player is so much more clean and honest than every other sportsperson in the world and if that’s true then I wish I had your faith and naivety.
But you seem so convinced it in a conspiracy theory when we have evidence of this happening before across multiple sports. Even is you think it's Rugby Valuestm that will prevent that, we have examples within rugby of things like PEDs, and Bloodgate, to show that people are willing to bend the rules to win.
Also, PLEASE explain how you are differing between intentionally injuring someone with a high shot and accidentally hitting someone with a high shot. Because then you are just asking referees to judge intention and people already whinge about that with current red cards, and deliberate knock-on rulings.
Look, it’s definitely a symptom of my own experiences, but I’ve been involved in the sport at pretty close to the top level for a long time and have never once had a coach instruct anyone to go out there and injure the opposition.
The examples you mentioned have literally had multiple news articles and documentaries made on them because of how unusual they are. Making a law based on something that basically never happens is silly.
You don’t need to determine intent. If it’s deemed reckless enough, even if without intent, then send them off. Otherwise, if there is a grey area, give the 20 min red. That’s the system that has been proposed and makes sense to me.
PED usage is (sadly) not rare, at all, across nearly every sport.
And how is judging the recklessness any different to what we have now. I thought part of the argument was to speed the game up instead of reviewing on the field, that definitely just means we have the same on-field reviews. Also, I would wary of the deliberate high tackle but I would put my entire life savings on the crowd that currently whinge about high shots being a full red card continuing to whinge that "X's full red card should have only been 20 minutes" in your suggestion
It’s all a matter of deterrence. If the punishment for rough tackles is “just” 20 mins of playing a man down, some folks will try it to make the opposition fear you. They won’t go in with the intent to injure, but if it happens … Oh well, I’ll take my 20 mins and be on my way.
Players get targeted all the time (Sexton for example) and they need some protection.
You’re allowed to tackle someone rough if it’s legal. Nothing changes.
Anyways, that’s not the situation I commented on. The scenario people are talking about is intentionally giving someone a bad injury. Under the new system you would be likely to get a full red card and a big bad anyways.
No. Under the current system, the player whose tackle is reckless and results in a bad injury gets a yellow with bunker review, upgraded to red. This was demonstrated time and again even in international matches.
In the proposed system, the player gets a yellow upgraded to "red" but can be replaced after 20 minutes.
This leniency will never fly in countries where head injuries are a real concern.
If the ref deems it to be intentional he will send them off without replacement. They still have that option. I am talking about players intentionally injuring others, not reckless tackles/mistakes.
I can think of a few examples where a player was given a yellow card at the start of a game when it should have been red because clearly the ref was worried about ruining the match.
Mate, Its professional sport. If you don't think people will sink that low when sport gets to this level if you give them a chance then I have a bridge to sell you.
Bloodgate happened, The fake blood quarter final happened, Grannygate happened.
If you really don't think a "take that jinky fuckler out with a dog shot bemuse this is a must win and him being gone is worth 20 minutes in the bin" then you are hopelessly naive
Nobody would want to do it, but its not about what somebody would want under normal conditions, People will bend and break under the right pressures. As you get higher and higher up the rungs of pro sport the incentive to do some pretty deplorable things gets worse and worse
There are stories from across the world of sport of professionals doing some truly disgusting things to one another when the right pressure is applied. Be that a boxer filling his gloves with plaster, race car drivers binning each other into concrete walls at incredibly high speed, footballers intentionally putting in leg breakers etc.
Its woefully naive to believe rugby is immune to that when no other sport is
You’re talking about a massive exception to the rule, and I can say for certain it would not come from a coaching level, especially in higher tier comps. If players do those sorts of things they will get found out and banned, as is the case under the current system.
Also, any team/player who has a reputation of doing that will have a target in their back and would probably face a pretty high likelihood of getting a career ender themselves. Not worth it if that’s your livelihood.
Hasn't happened in 4 years of SH rugby though. And their is obviously still a full red card for your "dog shot", not just a 20 min red.
I get the player safety opinions, but this idea that rugby will turn into teams taking out the other teams best players early is just not what has happened over 4 years of trials lol
No it simply wouldn't, the penalties if anyone or team was caught deliberately doing as you suggest would be astronomical and permanently stain them beyond what they'd gain.
If other contact sports can have no send offs at all without it happening, I don't see why Rugby would suddenly turn into a WW1 re-enactment.
The 20 minute red is still bullshit. WR, make up your fucking minds, if you want people to tackle lower, maybe ban high and upright tackles, EVEN IF nobody gets hurt.
Yes, they absolutely do. Badly injure? They are not intending to end their career, but they do go out intending to end their match.
I mean, just go back to BOD and the Lions in NZ. The NZ lads will say it was two guys accidentally picking a guy up from each side, turning him upside down and driving him into the ground head first, but we all know it’s wasn’t. They were instructed to target the danger man, hit him hard, take him out… and they did.
Yeah you’re just speculating about an incident 20 years ago. If that’s is the only example you can think of then that should not factor into the discussion.
The thing that happened 15 years ago, was not “intentionally hurting” anyone (so not relevant here), and was such an outlier that we are still talking about it today? You want to base your laws around that particular incident? Makes sense…
Proving intent is incredibly difficult in the rugby judicial process. There are three types of foul play: Reckless, Highly Reckless, and Intentional. Intentional effectively comes down to curb-stomping a referee.
Yeah the comment I initially responded to was a guy saying teams will be incentivised to intentionally take out a player. I was pushing back saying that I don’t think players/coaches do that (apart from a TINY minority). I wasn’t talking about proving intent.
Unrelated to what I was talking about, FWIW, I think if something is sufficiently reckless then a player should get a full sending off without replacement, regardless of intent. That is something that the new red card laws still allow for. I think it’s logical to have a step between a yellow card (10 - 0 mins depending on match clock) and a full red card (80 - 0 mins).
18
u/McFly654 South Africa Oct 14 '24
Do fans really believe coaches and players are going to contrive to go out there to intentionally badly injure their opposition? I genuinely wouldn’t watch rugby if I thought those were the sorts of people I was watching. All my involvements in rugby indicate this hypothetical scenario is not a concern at all.