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'Glad I retired': Nigel Owens wades into Bristol red card debate

Referee Pierre Brousset shows a red card to Bristol's Josh Caulfield (Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Retired referee Nigel Owens has shared his thoughts about the overturned disciplinary hearing red card decision involving Bristol second row Josh Caulfield.

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The Bears lock was sent off last Friday in Galway by French referee Pierre Brousset in the 13th minute of his team’s Investec Champions Cup match at Connacht for stamping on Ireland prop Finlay Bealham.

Bristol went on to lose the game 27-10, a result that left them propping up the bottom of the six-team table and failing to progress in the competition.

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However, it has now emerged that the red card brandished to Caulfield was unwarranted and the English club’s forward is available for selection for their Gallagher Premiership fixture at home to Bath this Saturday.

According to an EPCR statement revealing the disciplinary hearing decision reached by Paul Thomas (Wales, chair), Marcello D’Orey (Portugal) and Stefan Terblanche (South Africa), “The committee determined that Caulfield had committed an act of foul play. However, it found that the offence did not warrant a red card and the red card decision was therefore overturned.”

The outcome left Owens, the world’s second most capped Test referee behind fellow retiree Wayne Barnes, bemused and he took to X (formerly Twitter) to express his dissatisfaction that Brousset’s red card decision wasn’t upheld.

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“How can they say this is foul play but not red card,” he began. “If it’s not foul play and complete accident then play on. If it’s reckless and foul play then it has to be RC. For what it’s worth, it’s a RC for me as it’s not a natural action of rucking and reckless. Glad I retired.”

After sharing his initial thoughts, Owens was asked by a reader, Chris Tate, “Would you not account for the fact he himself took a boot to the face a split second before?” Owens replied: “If you think that causes this then play on, no foul play. Am not too sure myself so if it is foul play then it has to be RC.”

Owens’ original post was in response to a tweet from Peter Jackson, the former long-serving Daily Mail rugby correspondent, who suggested: “Rugby’s capacity for making itself a laughing stock knows no bounds.

“A disciplinary panel finds Josh Caulfield guilty of foul play but that “the offence did not warrant a red card”. So a reckless boot to the head is ok? And the game keeps spouting on about player welfare.”

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Tom 301 days ago

It's like when players get a penalty or yellow card for a high tackle when they've hit someone in the head but there has been extreme mitigation. E.g. the ball carrier has slipped and fallen rapidly at the last moment. Even though the tackler was using good technique and would have otherwise hit the ball carrier in the waist, they'll give a yellow card and say there was mitigation.

Sometimes a red card is necessary, sometimes a yellow card is necessary but sometimes it's just a rugby incident. You can't penalize or give yellow cards for rugby incidents. Completely agree with Nige here. Either Caulfield gets a red card and a ban or it was a freak accident and it wasn't foul play.

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JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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