As my daughter might say....'whatever'!
Whatever?
To indicate your level of concern about the incident?
To the fact that a player has suffered an injury that might jeopardise their career?
To the fact that rucks are not being controlled according to the Laws?
To the fact that people feel lack of intent makes it acceptable, when for a head contact or injury that resulted from Foul Play, off feet at ruck, then a minimum Yellow Card and off-field review would have occurred?
To the fact that the citing commissioner appears not to be reviewing the incident?
I am again astounded that we can spend much effort and time discussing minutiae, exploring the depths of Watership Down, yet try and address the very public injury in a very high profile game to a very high profile player and the fact that it stems from failure to apply well written, clearly understandable Laws and it's like waiting for the tumble weed to blow through.
How can we even start to profess the game is safe when we do not apply those Laws?
How can we assure Johnny and Jessie's mum that the game is safe? After all this is the Court of public opinion!
How can we grow the game if Johnny and Jessie go on to play draughts as it is the only thing they think is safe?
We enforce tackling in the air, we enforce tip tackles, we enforce taking players out in the line out, we enforce high tackles. All of which might be considered unintentional, clumsy, mistimed, an outcome of the dynamics, second player joining in. But we apply the Law!
Why don't we enforce rucking Laws?
Mr Brace did ping a couple yesterday later in the game but it needs to be more consistent and fully supported.
Not wanting to live in the past but this
piece from 1994 was perhaps the start of the shambles:
Clive Norling, one of the greatest of our referees, proffered a similar view: 'The secret of good refereeing is knowing when not to blow the whistle. You can in fact referee without a whistle.' Norling believes that the laws themselves are more at fault than the referees and that they should not be made by committee men but should be decided by a panel of active players, active coaches and active referees. He is especially caustic of the recent stewardship of the International Rugby Board's laws committee by Dr Roger Vanderfield of Australia, who he says has not blown a whistle for more than 20 years.
In common with other referees, Norling believes that laws are sometimes changed unnecessarily on the whim of individual countries. For instance, you could once opt to take a scrum instead of a line-out on your own throw, and the repeal of that law was at the instigation of the Scottish. Norling believes that its return would counter the modern rush for the seven-foot giant.
Fred Howard, the formidable English official who has recently been appointed as the national referees coach by the Rugby Union, disagreed that it is the laws which are at fault. He pointed out that during the World Cup there was total consistency between the northern and southern hemisphere referees concerning staying on feet in the ruck.
Now, however, things have got worse, according to Howard, because there is insufficient communication and referees revert to the style required by their respective home union. Rowlands confirmed this, saying that he had never seen a ruck as defined in the law book, which says that a player joining a ruck must have his head and shoulders no lower than his hip. He must bind with at least one arm around the body of a player of his team in the ruck.
Howard conceded that one of the biggest problems in the game is the ruck, and pointed out that there is only one genuine ruck: with everybody on their feet. However, the best way of securing the ball in the modern game is to go to ground and the players have rumbled this. Once people are not upright, there is no ruck, and this is not properly covered by law. Penalties at rucks, which depend on the interpretation of individual referees, have become far too prevalent.
because to do so ten yards from your own line without even looking for a penalty as a result (which he didn't) would be criminally negligent defending ... and completely out of character for him to boot.