Lood de Jager review: Give the match officials the red card
The match officials should be red carded for getting it so wrong with the Lood de Jager straight red-card sending off, writes Mark Keohane.
De Jager was shown a straight red card for an action deemed to be premeditated foul play, through the intervention of the assistants and Television Match Official after referee Angus Gardner initially waved play on for a collision that happened right in front of him in real time.
Gardner was insistent initially that he did not think it warranted a red card, when the TMO intervened and asked him to have a look at the contact. Gardner felt there was mitigation as France’s fullback Thomas Ramos’s knees were on the ground from him taking an earlier tackle. This rendered him half his height if he ordinarily was going into a tackle.
De Jager, who is two metres tall, had to adjust and lower his tackle attempt, which he did. In real time, his right arm is wrapping and his left arm is going in for the wrap and hit, which ordinarily, if Ramos had stayed upright, would have been near his ribs.
As it was Ramos stopped De Jager’s left arm from the wrap by blocking the arm with his left arm.
In real time, speed of the game, there was no direct contact to the head but a secondary motion from a secondary tackle. In real time it is a rugby collision, but when slowed down to freeze frame motion it looks like attempted murder, depending where and when one wants to freeze the point of contact.
Ramos milked attention to the collision and then showed no signs of pain in his verbals straight afterwards.
THE BREAKDOWN: LOOD DID NOT DESERVE RED CARD
The three match officials and TMO then convinced themselves that on the freeze frames De Jager had committed a crime and had to be banished from the field of play, not to be replaced after 20 minutes by another player.
The way the new bunker referral works is that a player is yellow carded but the referee asks for it to be reviewed as a possible red card offence. This is what should have happened. In this instance, even if upgraded to a red card, then the player can still be replaced. If sent straight from the field by way of a red card, the team plays one man down for the remainder of the game.
The incident was deemed so brutal that De Jager was shown red, but Ramos, supposedly buried into the Stade de France turf, rose like Lazarus and resumed as if nothing had happened.
Ramos was not even sent for an HIA, the necessary head assessment for concussion, and completed the match.
Ironically, there was an early intervention to remove De Jager from the field of play because his gum guard had supposedly shown he had taken a blow to his head.
De Jager, captain Siya Kolisi and the rest of the forwards who were waiting to complete a line out, looked as perplexed as De Jager on the call.
It was a strange call, made even more bizarre when there was no consideration or thought even given to Ramos needing to have his HIA test.
The contradictions in the application of what constitutes a blow to the head continues to make a mockery as it asks the question of when is it based on player safety or when have the match officials just got it wrong?
The Boks, having a penalty overturned to go 16-14 up on half-time, then played 30 minutes of the second half a player down, and still triumphed 19-3 in those 40 minutes.
It was a remarkable Boks performance.
