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England back-rower Tom Curry banned after last Saturday's red card
By Liam Heagney
Back-rower Tom Curry must attend tackle school if he is to feature in another England pool game prior to his team’s likely progress to the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals on the weekend of October 14.
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The 25-year-old has received a three-game ban that can be reduced to two after the yellow card he received from referee Mathieu Raynal for his head-on-head collision with Argentina’s Juan Cruz Mallia last Saturday in Marseille was upgraded to a red card offence following a TMO bunker review of the footage.
Despite Curry’s third-minute exit, England went on to comfortably win their World Cup opener 27-10 at Stade Velodrome.
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It was the next day when it was confirmed that the forward would appear before a virtual disciplinary hearing judicial committee on Tuesday chaired by Adam Casselden (Australia) and including former players John Langford (Australia) and Jamie Corsi (Wales).
That hearing has now ended and a statement read: “England’s Tom Curry attended an independent disciplinary committee hearing for an offence contrary to law 9.13 (dangerous tackle) as a result of a review by the foul play review official on September 9.
“The player accepted the red card and was suspended for two matches (subject to completion of the coaching intervention programme). The player accepted that foul play occurred and that the offence warranted a red card.
“The committee noted that the offence carries a mandatory minimum mid-range sanction (six matches).
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“Having considered the mitigating factors, including admission of foul play and correctness of the red card at the first opportunity, an exemplary disciplinary record, apology to the player and good character, the committee reduced the sanction by the maximum mitigation of 50 per cent.
“The final sanction of three matches is to be applied as follows:
- England vs Japan, September 17;
- England vs Chile, September 23;
- England vs Samoa, October 7 (The player will be free to play in this match subject to successful completion of the coaching intervention programme.
“The player intends to apply to take part in the World Rugby coaching intervention programme to substitute the final match of the sanction for a coaching intervention aimed at modifying specific techniques and technical issues that contributed to the foul play subject to successful completion.”
The red card for Curry was England’s third sending-off in four matches for contact with an opposition player’s head. Owen Farrell was given a four-game ban for his August 12 Twickenham collision with Wales’ Taine Basham, while Billy Vunipola was suspended for three games for his August 19 Aviva Stadium collision with Ireland’s Andrew Porter.
That ban was reduced to two games after Vunipola successfully completed tackle school, freeing him for selection in this weekend’s game against Japan.
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Given the high likelihood of red cards, I think most teams will be missing a few key players by the time we reach the quarters, semis and final.
I’m positive that anyone who doesn’t agree won’t be shy in telling me but what I find most infuriating with the high tackle/ reffing debate is the inconsistency.
If world rugby deemed any head contact an immediate red, I wouldn’t be the happiest. BUT if it was reffed consistently and all the players and fans knew the deal I think it would eventually become part of the game. Same if head contact was fine dependant on force and malice etc.but this inconsistency which has been highlighted this weekend in lots of similar occurrences (curry, kriel, Carreras) with completely different outcomes just causes so much confusion and anger toward the officials, the game and the WRU.
Just make a good informed decision and just make it consistent
Good
As an england fan, i was quite happy to see curry get a red card because i thought it would stop south africans from whinging that referees and world rugby were biased against them. Little did I know it would just make everyone whinge even more. Can't we all just enjoy the game?
High tackles can be coached out of the game. There has to be some incentive to do so. And not getting red cards is a pretty good incentive.
But the inconsistency in the application of the law is a big problem.
It's difficult to comprehend exactly where the rugby authorities imagine they are taking the game in regard to the completely arbitrary and frankly unfit for purpose process that currently masquerades as player safety protocols.
Virtually every game is now decided by yellow and red cards that are dished out like lucky dip lottery tickets.
Hopefully not hyperbole, however rugby does seem to have an ability to shoot itself in the foot. So many red cards these days "according to the framework", are arguably rugby incidents and part of the risk we all have to accept when we play(ed) the game. There was no malice in the Curry tackle and, with the player coming down after catching a high ball, very easy to be sympathetic to his positioning. This was the point Victor Matfield made on the Rugby Pod this week. Then we have the inconsistency (e.g.) of the Kriel tackle v Scotland which wasn't even looked at, but arguably warranted sanction. I do believe that intent and common sense judgement need to be taken as opposed to the very programmatic and unsympathetic judgements made now.
A disgrace to a game quickly trying to ruin itself into oblivion. Probably didn’t even deserve a penalty and he gets a red card at, if we believe say Eddie Jones, the only meaningful rugby tourney that only happens twice a decade? And he already missed basically an entire game with it happening so early. Makes one need to puke. Gods out there please alleviate our species’ headlong sprint towards greater idiocy.