Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

'It is potentially changing the face of the game' - dangerous play sanctions have 'gone too far' - Pivac

All Blacks flanker Jerome Kaino recieves a yellow card

Scarlets coach Wayne Pivac, who will take charge of Wales after next year’s World Cup, believes sanctions to deal with dangerous play and protect players have “gone too far”.

ADVERTISEMENT

Pivac was responding to the three week ban imposed on Samoa and Scarlets wing Kieron Fonotia for the way he dealt with Ospreys’ Wales wing George North, using an arm to fend off an opponent. The former police officer’s comments come as the game deals with numerous serious injuries and citings for alleged dangerous play from the first round of European matches.

“We’ve got to look after people’s heads, I totally agree, but I think we’ve gone too far and I’d like to see a balance,” Pivac told BBC Sport. “Away from the rugby field, if you go before the authorities for a physical act, they take into account the physical action and the intent. In rugby we don’t take into account the intent.

“The mid-section (of possible sanctions) is a serious amount of time out of the game for something which is totally accidental… I don’t think personally we’ve got this one right.”

Video Spacer

The Scarlets coach is taking his own measures to try and avoid similar offences being punished and bans imposed by changing the way his players tackle in training. World Rugby have trialled a “nipple line” for the height of the tackle at U20 level and it will also be used in the Championship Cup in England next month.

“We’re spending a lot of time as coaches (on the issue), it is potentially changing the face of the game, body heights have to be lowered… but there’s an onus on both sides, attack and defence,” he added.

“We’ve changed the zones that we tackle in, we’re looking for a higher percentage in the lower range (on the body).

ADVERTISEMENT

“I’ve lost a player for three weeks, it could have been six. I don’t have a budget where I can just go and replace players so I have to keep my players on the field.”

Fonita missed the Scarlets narrow opening round European Champions Cup defeat by Racing 92 and also sits out Friday night’s Pool clash with Leicester.

Video Spacer
ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 4 hours ago
'Let's not sugarcoat it': Former All Black's urgent call to protect eligibility rules

Yep, no one knows what will happen. Thing is I think (this is me arguing a point here not a random debate with this one) they're better off trialing it now in a controlled environment than waiting to open it up in a knee jerk style reaction to a crumbling organtization and team. They can always stop it again.


The principle idea is that why would players leave just because the door is ajar?


BBBR decides to go but is not good enough to retain the jersey after doing it. NZ no longer need to do what I suggest by paying him to get back upto speed. That is solely a concept of a body that needs to do what I call pick and stick wth players. NZR can't hold onto everyone so they have to choose their BBBRs and if that player comes back from a sabbatical under par it's a priority to get him upto speed as fast as possible because half of his competition has been let go overseas because they can't hold onto them all. Changing eligibility removes that dilemma, if a BBBR isn't playing well you can be assured that someone else is (well the idea is that you can be more assured than if you only selected from domestic players).


So if someone decides they want to go overseas, they better do it with an org than is going to help improve them, otherwise theyre still basically as ineligible as if they would have been scorning a NZ Super side that would have given them the best chance to be an All Black.

147 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING Watch: Springbok Arendse brutally runs straight through defender to score on Dynabours debut Watch: Arendse brutally runs straight through defender
Search