Springboks: When Lood de Jager will learn his suspension fate and how long the ban could be<\/a><\/p>\nWhy De Jager\u2019s case is different<\/p>\n
So why wasn\u2019t De Jager afforded the same process?<\/p>\n
Following the July internationals this year, the protocol was updated, without being disclosed, to include acts of foul play that were always illegal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe difference between a permanent red card and a 20-minute red card,\u201d Gardner explains in a World Rugby explainer posted on social media platform X.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour permanent red card is your act of thuggery, it\u2019s the dirty acts we see in the game, and it\u2019s the first view that the referee is referred to, and the player is removed from the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 20-minute red card is a result of a yellow card and an off-field review, and a 20-minute red card is an upgrade decision made by the Foul Play Review Officer.\u201d<\/p>\n
He adds: \u201cThe 20-minute red card is a more technical offence, a player gets it wrong and is too upright in a tackle, those types of instances.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he does a good job in summing up the process, the use of the word \u2018thuggery\u2019 is somewhat misleading as it suggests that it\u2019s merely for actions like punching, biting, eye gouging, stamping and so on under Law 9.12.<\/p>\n
This was the case initially, but the tweak World Rugby made to the process now includes incidents where the player is deemed to be committing an offence that is \u2018always an illegal action with a high degree of danger\u2019.<\/p>\n
So when Gardner reviewed De Jager\u2019s tackle attempt, he had to follow the World Rugby Head Contact Process.<\/p>\n
If we follow the process, these are the answers that Gardner would have come to:<\/p>\n
\u2013 Was there head contact? YES
\u2013 Is there Foul Play? YES \u2013 He is not wrapping his tackling arm. While he makes an attempt with his right, it is the left that makes contact and where he should be wrapping.
\u2013 Degree of Danger? HIGH. He makes direct contact with the head of Ramoas with high force.
\u2013 Mitigation? NO. This is the pivotal call, because De Jager\u2019s arm is tucked, and makes direct contact with Ramos\u2019 head, mitigation is not considered, as it was always an illegal action. Therefore, no mitigation can be applied, like Ramos\u2019 drop in height and how low De Jager was when going into the tackle.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The crux of it<\/p>\n
Had the Springboks lock attempted a wrap with his left arm, he may have escaped with a 20-minute red card, and South Africa would have been able to replace him after that sin-binning period. In fact, he may have even escaped with a lesser punishment, as mitigation would have been considered because he was then doing everything he could to execute a legal tackle (bent down low and wrapping his arm).<\/p>\n
The 20-minute red card was introduced with the aim of not punishing teams too severely for players simply getting it wrong, and unfortunately for De Jager, the fact that he leads with his shoulder and a tucked arm means he was never in a position to execute a legal action. The tweak is essentially a change in the application of the law rather than a change in the law to better align with the Head Contact Process.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s entirely possible that De Jager would have wrapped his left arm had he made contact with Ramos\u2019 torso instead. Similar styled tackles are made in every single rugby match without punishment because there is no head contact. But much like a player throwing one hand out in an attempt to intercept the ball, tackling in this manner comes with its risks, and it was a bust for the Bok second rower.<\/p>\n
The laws are designed to punish outcomes, not intent, and ultimately, the outcome of De Jager\u2019s tackle was that he made a dangerous and always illegal hit in the view of the official.<\/p>\n
Planet Rugby reached out to a current elite professional match official to ensure that the technicalities and law interpretations expressed in this article were accurate and fair \u2013 which they were.<\/p>\n
READ MORE:\u00a0November Test Team of the Week: Springboks \u2018sheer masterclass\u2019, All Blacks\u2019 saviour and \u2018world-class\u2019 Englishman rewarded<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A change in the guidelines around 20-minute red cards is the reason why Springboks lock Lood de Jager…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[242,819,348,3482,76030,50,5903,4247,101,56,54,55,31902],"class_list":["post-256229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-features","tag-france","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-lood-de-jager","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-south-africa","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-world-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}