{"id":703757,"date":"2026-05-30T06:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T06:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/703757\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T06:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T06:32:09","slug":"player-safety-getting-left-behind-in-top-level-rugby-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/703757\/","title":{"rendered":"Player safety getting left behind in top-level rugby \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sir, \u2013 As always, it\u2019s a delight to read Owen Doyle\u2019s Whistleblower column. His assessment of the referees\u2019 adjudication of the two most important games of the rugby season was spot on (\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/rugby\/2026\/05\/25\/owen-doyle-referees-get-an-armchair-ride-as-leinster-and-ulster-crash-and-burn\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/rugby\/2026\/05\/25\/owen-doyle-referees-get-an-armchair-ride-as-leinster-and-ulster-crash-and-burn\/\">Referees get an armchair ride as Leinster and Ulster crash and burn<\/a>\u201d, Sport, May 26th).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Doyle highlights the dangers of the game, the foul play and how it was seen by the referees. In the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/rugby\/2026\/05\/23\/leinster-blitzed-by-bordeaux-begles-as-they-suffer-deflating-champions-cup-final-defeat\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/rugby\/2026\/05\/23\/leinster-blitzed-by-bordeaux-begles-as-they-suffer-deflating-champions-cup-final-defeat\/\">Champion<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/rugby\/2026\/05\/23\/leinster-blitzed-by-bordeaux-begles-as-they-suffer-deflating-champions-cup-final-defeat\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/sport\/rugby\/2026\/05\/23\/leinster-blitzed-by-bordeaux-begles-as-they-suffer-deflating-champions-cup-final-defeat\/\">s Cup game<\/a>, one incident was obviously dangerous play \u2013 even to my unprofessional eyes \u2013 and should have been carded. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The fact it wasn\u2019t carded is not the issue here. It is extremely alarming to read that \u201cthe tournament organisers have not bought into\u201d the bunker system. How is it possible that this new rule \u2013 a vital one for player safety \u2013 is not bought into by all rugby organisations?<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Player welfare is paramount in a game where anything can happen in the heat of the moment, unintentional or otherwise. \u2013 Yours, etc,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">VICTORIA MADIGAN,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Terenure,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Dublin 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir, \u2013 As always, it\u2019s a delight to read Owen Doyle\u2019s Whistleblower column. His assessment of the referees\u2019&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,184822,115792,176955,760,85],"class_list":["post-703757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-challenge-cup","tag-champions-cup","tag-leinster-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}