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High tackle decision-making framework for referees shared on social media

New Zealand's Scott Barrett is sent off against Australia (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

One of the hottest debates in rugby currently is whether All Blacks lock Scott Barrett deserved a red card in Saturday’s Bledisloe Cup contest in Perth.

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Barrett was shown red by referee Jerome Garces for a shoulder charge to Michael Hooper’s neck just before half-time, as the Wallabies went on to run away with the game 47-26. Since then, a debate has ensued as to whether it was a red card or not.

While it looks as though the majority in the rugby world agree with the referee, there are certainly those that do not, who insist that it was only a yellow card.

But the decision-making framework that referees should work through when deciding what card to award has been shared on Twitter in the hope of clearing things up.

World Rugby define a shoulder charge as where the “arm of the shoulder making contact with the ball carrier is behind the tackler’s body or tucked in ‘sling’ position at contact”, which was definitely the case with Barrett’s tackle.

The framework also says that if a shoulder charge is to the head or neck, then it is a straight red card, which is why so many believe Garces made the right decision.

However, it is understandable why there are those that disagree with the referees decision, and this is due to the mitigating factors that are stated, one of which is if the “ball carrier drops in height”.
Dane Coles is the first man to tackle Hooper and he is in the process of dragging him to the ground when Barrett flies in with the shoulder.

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The hooker may have lowered Hooper’s height enough to make it a shot on the neck rather than the torso, which may have been a yellow card rather than a red.

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Having said that, many would argue that Hooper’s height did not fall enough to let Barrett off, but this does go to show that there may still be some contention despite the framework clearing things up.

What is beneficial for fans and pundits is knowing the processes that referees must go through when making these decisions.

To add fuel to the fire, Barrett has been given a three-week suspension, meaning he only misses one All Blacks game (against the Wallabies at Eden Park), which has caused further outrage.

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J
JW 4 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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