The International Rugby Board have admitted Romain Poite made a mistake, a human error, in yellow carding Bismarck du Plessis for his perfect hit on Dan Carter. Well, that’s nice, but it makes no difference now ... the deed is done.
And the fact that Sanzar yesterday removed the red card from Du Plessis’ record following a hearing – meaning he is free to play, with no further sanction – is good news, but what about the performance of Poite?
Will the IRB or Sanzar red card him?
Anyway, some have suggested red cards in rugby ruin the game, that with 14 men playing 15 it’s just not a fair contest.
Former All Blacks and Lions coach John Mitchell said after Saturday’s Auckland Test that punishments to players should rather be handed out afterwards; that having full teams face each other is imperative for the contest.
The problem is not with red carding players ... because if players deserve a red card, they should be punished there and then, during the game.
The problem is with the inept officiating, not the system of dishing out cards.
There is so much technology available and if you consider a referee is assisted by two “touch judges” and a TMO there should be no mistakes. They have the time and the support to get decisions right. Poite just got it wrong.
Handing out yellow and red cards is a necessity, otherwise players would kill the ball whenever they liked, knowing nothing would happen to them, tackles would be high and late and there’d be all sorts of other dirty tricks.
Ask any player what he’d prefer and he’d say if someone transgresses the law the punishment should be dealt with in the game, because what’s the point of doing it later.
But we need to move on from Auckland. No matter how angry the players and coaches are, and for that matter the fans, whatever the IRB do will not change the outcome of the match.
And to be fair, as the Boks have admitted, the All Blacks probably deserved to win on Saturday.
They played better than the Boks and were in control of matters, whether the Boks had 15 or 14 men on the field. Heyneke Meyer’s team made too many errors in defence, their passing was poor and they never bossed the collisions.
But that does not mean the All Blacks will go on to win the competition. There are two rounds left and if the Boks pick up wins against Australia in Cape Town and New Zealand at Ellis Park there’s every chance Meyer’s team can still lift the trophy. It’s now just a tougher ask, but then, we didn’t expect it to be anything less. - The Star