Another tackle in the air red card

Incident 0:21 seconds in.


I hate these challenges. Hate what the early red cards do to games. Of course, as an Ulster fan I called for it. But also because I believe in consistency - we still remember Payne vs Saracens in 2014 quarters (HERE)

These reds simply do not eliminate the action. The experiment is over. It doesn't work as a deterrent, because it's never intentional, and it often happens too quickly to be chalked down to carelessness.

At this point they may as well change the laws to say
'A player must not remain on the ground to attempt a catch'.

Because that is effectively the message. If you position yourself to be where the ball is likely to fall, but stay on the ground, but another player willingly chooses to jump at speed over and above your body, then you are off if you make contact with that airborne player.

I've debated this before, but this time my question is simple -

Can anything more be done to create a better incentive to avoid 'carelessness'?

The motivation in all this is player safety - agreed?
Have the stats on players falling on their shoulder/neck/head changed AT ALL? in the last decade?

I'd love to know.

This was a red, Payne's was a red. No argument. It's reckless which is what World Rugby are trying to avoid.

The change in red card ruling being trialed in Super Rugby I think will help. 20 minutes down a man and then the sent off player is subbed. That'll keep games competitive but still act as a significant deterrent.

You've missed my point and my main question.

Has it in fact been a deterrent?
Do you think there has been less incidents in the past decade since they've been more strict on the penalties for this? I don't think there has.

Has player safety actually been improved?

clivemcl wrote:You've missed my point and my main question.

Has it in fact been a deterrent?
Do you think there has been less incidents in the past decade since they've been more strict on the penalties for this? I don't think there has.

Has player safety actually been improved?

Yes I do think it has made a difference. Generally there's a lot better anticipation of hitting a player when he hits the ground and a lot more emphasis on players developing their ability in the air.

There has definitely been far fewer challenges in the air resulting in reds. The 20 min player off trial has also seen a rise in reds as I understand.

I actually think it has made a difference.  I can't cite stats but from what I hear from other docs, physios, and coaches there are fewer players challenging kicks than before which leads to fewer potentially hazardous collisions.  I think it would be hard to wrap stats around it because it is impossible to quantify times players decide to not do something.  Also, with the heightened awareness there are more cards than before for collisions which may not have been carded or penalised previously.  

But, to the point, I think we can't eliminate contact from a contact sport.  But I also think the penalties need to be looked at from the standpoint that if the referee  believes both players are making a fair attempt for a kick, then no pen is warranted.  That is despite whether one player can jump higher than another one.   On the other hand, in the example of the Jared Payne incident, we had Payne, a player who was clearly not a dirty player in his career, not really looking up at the ball and ran through the receiving player who was in the air.  That, to me, had to be sanctioned.  In the today world, he has to identify where the receiver will be and take that into account whether (and how) he goes for the ball. Maybe not quite fair for a chaser on the kicking team, but necessary.

Player safety has to be paramount, I think we will all agree on that, but I've got to be a bit contrarian here. Which is more "reckless"? Running and staying on the ground, or leaping into the air when running? You are not allowed to jump into the tackle lest we forget.

Unfortunately this line of reasoning will remove the game completely, after all is the original reckless act not just choosing to play a contact sport in the first place? However much I think that it is reckless to leap when running at full speed there has to be a duty of care on anyone wanting to compete in such a situation.

Reckless, careless, whatever you want to call it, there has to be sanction, and there has to be level of deterrence. And for that to be effective I think it should be a red card. Can a red card spoil the spectacle? Yes, but that is sport, rather than just entertainment.

If it was all about entertainment should we not remove a player from a team if it builds up too much of lead, say 21pts ahead? Just to make it competitive and more entertaining? No sensible person would advocate that.

If behaviours are going to be changed then the best way of encouraging that is through harsh sanctions. Unfortunately there is no easy way of rewarding not being reckless or careless (as far as I can think), so we are left with the stick.

We have the least worst option in my view.

Unclear wrote:Player safety has to be paramount, I think we will all agree on that, but I've got to be a bit contrarian here.  Which is more "reckless"?  Running and staying on the ground, or leaping into the air when running?  You are not allowed to jump into the tackle lest we forget.

Thanks Unclear, this is what I've said often in the past too.

If you showed any of these incidents to anyone who didn't know rugby. Or rather - somebody who doesn't watch sport.
What would there synopsis be if we told them the concern was player safety?

I'm fairly certain most non-rugby fans would highlight the problem being the airborne player.

As Unclear says, the player is choosing to go airborne. He is often doing it at speed. That action is what creates the chance of danger.
And yet another player who has nothing to do with the creation of the danger is now 100% responsible for the outcome.

My final point - IF, as we claim the player on the ground has a duty of care to an airborne player, then why do we only red card the player if they are on the other team?
I know that might sound ridiculous at first but bare with me here. The red cards are to deter recklessness yes? Nobody thinks these incidents happen to gain an advantage in the game. The punishment is not about the game or the scoreline, it's about the safety and recklessness. (I'm confident it has happened, I just can't think of any specific occasions).

If the recklessness comes from your own team mate, why does that very same recklessness escape punishment?


Like I've said before, less players will land on their heads when we stop allowing players to jump at speed into high traffic catch zones.
That's what you would do if you wanted to almost eliminate this danger.

It's a balance to preserving the game. Could irradiate everything by making it touch rugby and banning kicking full stop.

But to come back again to 'The experiment is over. It doesn't work as a deterrent,'.

The experiment is over and it was a huge success and here to stay. Similarly eventually the amount of reds for hitting people in the head will fall but there will still be cases of reds.

Fair enough, without stats we can prove nothing. I didn’t personally feel like tackles in the air have reduced, but I see many others believe they have. I could be wrong - I don’t watch too many games outside of my own team!

So would you say we eradicated the incidents where players tackled in the air due to malice? But still see the ones where it perhaps can’t be helped? We are talking milliseconds here from a player going airborne. In most of these cases, I think the player ‘at fault’ doesn’t have time to change course.

Effectively, if you don’t also jump, you’re likely to cause a red card incident, so why do we still have players trying to catch on the ground?

Are they just not that bright? Or do they think the opposition player is unlikely to jump even though stats show they nearly always do?

Decision making by players. The ideal for say a full back is catching the ball on the ground well set so stationary which if someone is chasing hard means you have choices on your play, step either side, pass, brace etc etc. In that instance you're not going to end up with a red card at all even if some jumps into you. Lots of cases where that may differ though.

Re tackled in the air, a lot of the dangerous ones where players basically 'run through' the legs on a player in the air upending him have been eradicated in the sense there are far fewer of them. And thats because the law is harsh on players simply running without taking any notice of player safety, they have to try and know what injury they could cause.

One point I wholeheartedly agree with is that the application of the laws rarely if ever take into account blue on blue. The most striking thing of this is when you see players nudge a chaser into some off the ground. We normally see the officials correctly downplay reds/yellows but I do think it's cynical and endangers players.

Jumping for the ball was a way of ensuring your own safety as a catcher. If you are standing still to catch a high kick, and a very fast and mobile player of 18 stone plus runs straight into you as you catch the ball, you are a sitting duck. The potential whiplash, spine or neck damage is immense.
There needs to be protection for the catcher - full back or whoever, from the tackler, whether they are on the ground or airborne.
It is the tacklers responsibility to not be reckless.  
Adam Hastings got a red a couple of years ago when he jumped for the ball, and the 'tackler' got caught in the face by Adam's boot. That is the tacklers fault, and should never have been a red for Adam.
The catcher can't be left in a vulnerable position like that. The tackler has the responsibility to not be reckless for his and the catchers sake.

Looking at it with a statistician's eye, this is all about false negatives (when something that should be carded isn't) and false positives (when something that shouldn't be carded isn't).

The new card frameworks for contact in the air and head contact have massively reduced the number of false negatives - initially by carding dangerous play, and then by players adjusting their approaches so that cardable events happen much less frequently.

But any statistician knows that when you reduce the number of false negatives, you increase the number of false positives. If you apply a framework strictly, you end up catching more rugby incidents in its net.

You can partly offset that by including mitigating factors (as JGP discovered in the Leinster game - he only faced a yellow card because *his* approach to the tackle was passive and without force, even though the tackled player smashed into him at quite some speed. Even so, many people saw that as too lenient - a false negative).

There are also incidents like the player who was carded for, effectively, getting kicked in the throat by a jumping player. I'd like to see that "studs up" style of jump policed a bit more carefully, but overall the framework works well.

Ultimately, you'll inevitably have some incidents where a player on the ground endangers a player in the air without being aware of it, or a Charlie Ewels clashing heads with James Ryan and being red carded early in the game. If that's the price to pay for greater safety, then so be it.

In the Toulouse case, the decisive factor for me was that the Toulouse player backed into the space without looking. A fairly natural reaction, but if he'd stood his ground the incident wouldn't have happened, and if he'd checked around him it wouldn't either. The rule - since the Payne/Goode incident - has been very clear: if you enter the space on the ground, it's incumbent on you to be aware of who might be jumping into it and adjust.

Some useful insights there folks, thanks!

I'd personally like to see differentiation on punishment based on the offending player's speed.
Surely we can all agree there is a big difference in supposed 'recklessness' between a slow/stationary grounded player having a airborne player jump over him at speed, compared with incidents like Payne/Goode where the player on the ground takes out the airborne player at speed.

It seems a little odd that they should both be red. Although, perhaps the disciplinary committee takes such factors into account for the ban?

Similarly with the tackling high issue - there surely has to be a difference if the upright player is stationary but approached at speed by the ball carrier, compared with a high speed tackler making a high hit.

Surely a ball carrier has some obligation not to go into contact with his head on the stationary tacklers' head?

clivemcl wrote:Some useful insights there folks, thanks!

I'd personally like to see  differentiation on punishment based on the offending player's speed.
Surely we can all agree there is a big difference in supposed 'recklessness' between a slow/stationary grounded player having a airborne player jump over him at speed, compared with incidents like Payne/Goode where the player on the ground takes out the airborne player at speed.

It seems a little odd that they should both be red. Although, perhaps the disciplinary committee takes such factors into account for the ban?

Similarly with the tackling high issue - there surely has to be a difference if the upright player is stationary but approached at speed by the ball carrier, compared with a high speed tackler making a high hit.

Surely a ball carrier has some obligation not to go into contact with his head on the stationary tacklers' head?

Should be completely on the tackler to lower his height, if the carrier ducks into it there can be mitigation and also if its a passive tackle you will also get a mitigation.

There is a differentiation based on speed in the high tackle framework. Speed of entry to the tackle is a material factor in the level of danger.

Speed is not a factor in the tackle in the air framework, because it's not a factor in the level of danger. The danger is determined by how the tackled player lands. The Toulouse player wasn't moving fast but it still resulted in a player landing on his head and leaving the field permanently. A player in the air is going to go over whether they encounter an unstoppable reckless force or a barely moving reckless object.

A speed mitigant appeals to notions of fairness, but it would actually mask what the framework is trying to achieve because it has little bearing on either the recklessness of the act or the seriousness of the outcome.

I can see where you are coming from Poofour, but I've seen upright tacklers be somewhat surprised that a player is charging at him sometimes what with the chaotic nature of open play. A lot of the judgement on these calls quite often assumes the player at fault has time to react.

A tackler doesn't run around the pitch in a squat, they squat when they need to, and sometimes the contact is unexpected.

I just have a hard time accepting a player gets penalised for standing still.

The upright tackle can get even more tricky. What we have is players taking contact chest to chest. Technically not high - not unless their heads make contact which often is only avoided by sheer luck.

Anyways... I'm very aware I just keep jumping sideways here and we are kinda off the original topic.

I appreciate all the discussion and debate. Plenty to mull over!

There's plenty of scope for mitigation if a tackler is surprised by the tackled player's movement - usually if they fall suddenly because someone else has tackled them or they stumbled. But the expectation is very much that tacklers should be ready to tackle low if the ball carrier is getting close to them.

There's also basically a blanket practice of giving tacklers much more leeway if the ball carrier is diving for the tryline.

clivemcl wrote:Fair enough, without stats we can prove nothing. I didn’t personally feel like tackles in the air have reduced, but I see many others believe they have. I could be wrong - I don’t watch too many games outside of my own team!

So would you say we eradicated the incidents where players tackled in the air due to malice? But still see the ones where it perhaps can’t be helped? We are talking milliseconds here from a player going airborne. In most of these cases, I think the player ‘at fault’ doesn’t have time to change course.

Effectively, if you don’t also jump, you’re likely to cause a red card incident, so why do we still have players trying to catch on the ground?

Are they just not that bright? Or do they think the opposition player is unlikely to jump even though stats show they nearly always do?

I think for the most part professionalism killed the malicious part of the game.  The players are all professionals earing their income the same as other players.  All knowing their time as pro Rugby players are short.  The last thing anyone wants is to be targeted and suffer a career limiting or ending injury because they deliberately knocked someone sideways.  Also, with so many players changing teams now, a opponent they injure today could be their teammate in the future.  

The RPA is strongly behind many of the laws changes/interpretations to reduce dangerous play.  So the players are generally behind it.  Unfortunately, as we know, there are inconsistent rulings by referees which highlights how difficult it is to get it right all the time.  Like it or not, the laws changes dumps even more on their shoulders, and Rugby is already the most difficult sport to get it right and still keep the game moving.   Getting it right with 30 players on the pitch and a game played at 100 mph is damn near impossible. It's always going to be a balance.  And the change in technique and approach takes time.

For something most seemed to have claimed was becoming rarer, it was interesting to see two tackle in the air incidents in the return fixture of Ulster v Toulouse.

If it was something that was avoidable by 'taking due care', why would we still see it in the VERY next game? Especially when we know the stakes are so high.

The first incident was a yellow (0:42) in the video.
I guess it's not. red because of the landing not being as severe?
Tell me... if the goal is to eradicate the recklessness, why is the severity of the fall even considered? It's not as if their actions dictate the position of the body as they land. It's binary, black and white - they either committed the foul or did not. Why differentiate based on a factor not related to their actions?

Second incident didn't even make the highlights and luckily Lowry got away with a penalty only? Did anyone see it? Toulouse player was about two foot higher, and Lowry second foot marginally left the air, but he was pretty much still on the ground. I think it was a poor call by the ref... and equally lacking in 'due care' as any other incident.

Lastly, a red card to Tom O'Toole (7:25). 100% a red.
But here's my gripe. As before, I don't buy that the deterrent is working.
I think if we were to watch for it, and take a tally, we would see 100s of upright tackles in every game.
For instance, look at the O-Toole incident, and then look at the double tackle on Vermulen from the kickoff at the start of the video. Similar? Yes. But different how? Direct contact to the head didn't happen to Vermulen.
Grand...

But wait, are we trying to deter players from contact with the head, or are we trying to deter players from upright tackles???

Do you believe in the split second any of these players doing their standard, commonly seen, upright tackles are truly in control of the exact point where they will make contact? I don't believe so, I think all upright tackles are a letter between shoulder on chin, shoulder on cheek, or head on head.

We know the goal is to achieve lower tackles to avoid the head injuries. And yet we don't penalise the tackle style most likely to result in head contact, we only penalise when head contact is made.

Good luck affecting change when you only penalise the act, but only penalise when their actions have a certain result.

If anyone knows of a video of Lowry's (penalty-only) challenge in the air, please post it!

Was Lowry a penalty?
I recall differently

Regardless he did nothing wrong.
He even had his hand on the ball at the same time as the Toulouse player.
He just lost out in the tussle because he was lower but he got to the ball at the same time

I could be misremembering Geoff to be fair. You could be right, maybe not even a penalty was given.

But remember, we are penalising to refuse reckless actions and risk to injury. Lowry May have touched the ball. His second foot may have been an inch off the ground, but was he respected the duty of care to the Toulouse player?

I mean… a player could jump two metres and miss the catch, and a player on the ground could catch it. It should be irrelevant how. Like they were to catching if the concern is supposed to be about the higher players risk to injury.

Lowry was just as ‘reckless’ as most red cards. But he escaped because the outcome wasn’t as bad, and he maybe touched the ball.

Doesn’t make sense to me.

It was a genuine contest for the ball unlike the red cards we have seen this weekend.

That is the crucial difference and hence the different outcome

clivemcl wrote:

For something most seemed to have claimed was becoming rarer, it was interesting to see two tackle in the air incidents in the return fixture of Ulster v Toulouse.

If it was something that was avoidable by 'taking due care', why would we still see it in the VERY next game? Especially when we know the stakes are so high.

The first incident was a yellow (0:42) in the video.
I guess it's not. red because of the landing not being as severe?
Tell me... if the goal is to eradicate the recklessness, why is the severity of the fall even considered? It's not as if their actions dictate the position of the body as they land. It's binary, black and white - they either committed the foul or did not. Why differentiate based on a factor not related to their actions?

Second incident didn't even make the highlights and luckily Lowry got away with a penalty only? Did anyone see it? Toulouse player was about two foot higher, and Lowry second foot marginally left the air, but he was pretty much still on the ground. I think it was a poor call by the ref... and equally lacking in 'due care' as any other incident.

Lastly, a red card to Tom O'Toole (7:25). 100% a red.
But here's my gripe. As before, I don't buy that the deterrent is working.
I think if we were to watch for it, and take a tally, we would see 100s of upright tackles in every game.
For instance, look at the O-Toole incident, and then look at the double tackle on Vermulen from the kickoff at the start of the video. Similar? Yes. But different how? Direct contact to the head didn't happen to Vermulen.
Grand...

But wait, are we trying to deter players from contact with the head, or are we trying to deter players from upright tackles???

Do you believe in the split second any of these players doing their standard, commonly seen, upright tackles are truly in control of the exact point where they will make contact? I don't believe so, I think all upright tackles are a letter between shoulder on chin, shoulder on cheek, or head on head.

We know the goal is to achieve lower tackles to avoid the head injuries. And yet we don't penalise the tackle style most likely to result in head contact, we only penalise when head contact is made.

Good luck affecting change when you only penalise the act, but only penalise when their actions have a certain result.

If anyone knows of a video of Lowry's (penalty-only) challenge in the air, please post it!

It is rarer. No question.

Re the point on severity etc it's because the law makers still want contests but to make the players very aware if it goes bad they're going to have consequences.

No 7&1/2 wrote:
Re the point on severity etc it's because the law makers still want contests but to make the players very aware if it goes bad they're going to have consequences.

Well that makes no sense, because the landing on neck shoulder is pretty much out of your hands once you collide.

Is that really World Rugby's position? They are ok with a serious neck injury as long as the other player nearly caught the ball?
But if somebody is paralysed because you got the timing slightly wrong you as a player will be villainies and have to live your life with that guilt?

It's a pretty half hearted attempt to eliminate the serious injury risk if you ask me. And once one player gets a life changing injury on the field of play, I guarantee the rules will be adjusted. But they won't adjust the rules until somebody take the life-changing injury that will inevitably force the change.

clivemcl wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:
Re the point on severity etc it's because the law makers still want contests but to make the players very aware if it goes bad they're going to have consequences.

Well that makes no sense, because the landing on neck shoulder is pretty much out of your hands once you collide.

Is that really World Rugby's position? They are ok with a serious neck injury as long as the other player nearly caught the ball?
But if somebody is paralysed because you got the timing slightly wrong you as a player will be villainies and have to live your life with that guilt?

It's a pretty half hearted attempt to eliminate the serious injury risk if you ask me. And once one player gets a life changing injury on the field of play, I guarantee the rules will be adjusted. But they won't adjust the rules until somebody take the life-changing injury that will inevitably force the change.

Yes. It's in the interpretation around this that it has to be fair challenge for the ball so in discussions the officials have one of the first things you'll hear was are both players in a realistic position to compete for the ball. If you're not then the consequences are down to result of landing, if you are it will (or at least should like any decision made by a human!) deemed a rugby incident.

As for injuries from it, well you could possibly be correct that something like that would result in shuffling feet and a change in the law but other bad injuries resulting from other parts haven't. Think crocodile rolls; and they have had their vocal criticisms from parts of the media and also scrums (leaving players paralysed).

To prevent all risk of injury you would have to make high balls incontestable.
How would that work?

As to the Lowry incident he did not get the timing wrong.
He got to ball and lost out in a tussle for the ball because the Toulouse was slightly higher in the air.

Yep, I hate seeing rolls. Even if they are aren't neck rolls, they it's just not a great idea to roll somebody sideways if their legs might be trapped/impeded and unable to roll with them.

I also don't like the inconsistency of no arms tackles being deemed ok at the corner flag or defending pick and goes on the touchlines.

I guess I'm just a stickler for rules. Well, not just that. I'm actually not a big rule-follower. I guess my thing is, I need to believe in the essence of the rule. And that's what frustrates me. If it's there for player safety, then why are we effectively saying 'except in the following circumstances where we don't care so much about the player safety'.

geoff999rugby wrote:To prevent all risk of injury you would have to make high balls incontestable.
How would that work?

No jumping to catch.
And yes, I've heard it before, this makes catchers a big target for what could be a big hit.
But surely rugby is about big hits.
I think we could even make this safer by actually enforcing the arm wrap.
And I mean, not just that the arm leads the shoulder, but that it actually wraps around the body.

It makes a kick potentially a bigger weapon yea, but what if tackling somebody at speed actually was riskier and if you don't arm wrap, you give away a penalty? So there's more incentive not to hit at full sprint speed. Full sprint hits rarely have an actual arm wrap. The shoulder force knocks them back before the arm comes round.

Hey, I'm just thinking out loud, this isn't a well tested or thought out idea so go easy on me.

But I do feel we can't just shrug when it comes to potentially head and neck life changing injuries.

You could take it further to and say there's plenty of arm wrap tackles that don't actually grip the player either before bouncing off. There are countless ways that the game could be made safer but like I said it's balance and how quickly new laws can be introduced while keeping punters happy too.

Here's a random thought if anyones bored and wants to help me feel this out.
What would happen to the game if you were allowed to call a mark from anywhere in your own half not just your 22?

It puts a greater emphasis on kicking to find ground/touch and takes away the big hit pressure on a catcher.

How would something like that change the game in terms of strategy ant tactics?
Would it make it dull, or reduce opportunities?

But yes, No 7&1/2 I take your point, getting too fixated on penalising everything and making the game super strict would be very frustrating for players and harm the enjoyment to watch. That's fair.

Hard to say on teh the mark from anywhere. In general there are a lot of up and unders that are aimed to be just outside the 22 so initially you'd think it would cut it down. Many of those kicks though as used to tackle the player as they land. As ever incredibly difficult to predict how teams may use the rule. Could lead to more lower trajectory kicks (as they're generally used when a teams momentum has ebbed); or conversely could it lead to more shorter range kicks where the attacking team challenges more and thus creates more of the thing you look to eradicate? I don't know!

A great segment here starting at about 10th minute:

Couple of tip tackles/clear outs as neither player had the ball, in recent weeks neither of which resulted in a red card. Sometimes when you think something is sorted the clear and proper punishments go out of peoples heads. Alyn Wyn Jones and Matera if anyone wants to look them up.