It’s rare that Michael Cheika is on anything other than the front foot. No matter whether it is a question of selection, tactics or crisis management, the Australia coach normally has something meaningful to say, which is why it is so obvious when he ducks an issue.
Cheika was asked whether the so-called tier two teams were getting a raw deal at disciplinary hearings during the World Cup and replied that he did not think that was the case. “It’s just the way it is. Like a lot of things in rugby it will be open to different interpretations and you have to roll with it.”
It’s the rugby answer but obviously not one to satisfy the world of social media, which would have discipline as an issue more comfortable in Paranoia Gulch.
However, when you invite the world to your party, you had better be ready to explain when your guests don’t understand your methods or practices.
First, a necessary bit of history. Not so long ago it was the referee alone who ran the game. What he saw he adjudicated on, what he didn’t went by the board and there was a culture of players sorting out “issues” among themselves.
Then came the empowerment of touch judges – as they were then called. Instead of confining themselves to saying where the ball had gone out of play, they were allowed to refer issues of foul play to the referee. Not that all of them did, or even do to this day.
Next came the TMO, a fourth official with a bank of television screens who could be asked to give advice first on whether a try had or had not been scored, then on the buildup to any try. Now they are allowed to whisper in the referee’s ear when they spot something. Whether the referee chooses to act on that advice is another matter. A couple of times we have seen the better, more confident refs say they have seen the matter at issue and are happy to let play continue or they may ask for a TMO’s review, but not stop the game.
So far so good, and I know no one who wants to turn the clock back, particularly to when the law of the jungle applied and mums of potential rugby players winced at what might happen to their son or daughter. The point is that issues are dealt with in a context – that of the live game. Now, however, we have citing commissioners and judicial officers – the first of whom pores over footage of games often picking up perceived sins not spotted by referees, the second presiding over a court of sorts, probably in a hotel room or a lawyer’s office with TV footage and reports from referees and assistant referees for company, but precious little allowed by way of context. Each crime graded by way of low, medium or high entry – the tariff by which the player has to be sentenced.
Let’s deal with three cases. First the Argentina lock Mariano Galarza, who was suspended for nine weeks almost before his World Cup had begun after making “contact with the eye or eye area” of Brodie Retallick, the All Blacks’ lock. It was a black-and-white case and although Galarza pleaded not guilty there was evidence of a hand in the area of Retallick’s eyes and even though Retallick gave evidence for Galarza, he was deemed guilty of a high-end crime.
I know Galarza. He hasn’t an evil bone in his body but his crime was absolute and carried an entry level of 12 weeks, so he was gone because the game, rightly, despises gouging.
Next came the Samoa wing Alesana Tuilagi and his five-week ban, later reduced to two, for an incident in the Pool B match against Japan which so incensed a lot of rugby players including the former England captain Lewis Moody, who wanted to know: “How is running into an opponent an act of foul play?”
The answer is when it is reviewed in the office of a firm of lawyers in Canary Wharf, footage of four cameras run at full speed, 75%, 50% and finally 25%, but, I would suggest, no proper context. What Tuilagi did to his would-be Japanese tackler Harumichi Tatekawa was what he has done throughout his career – none of the referee, Craig Joubert, or his assistants Wayne Barnes and Stuart Berry, saw anything wrong – but this time he caught Tatekawa’s head with a knee and that’s a crime with an eight-week entry point.
Finally Michael Hooper, the Australian who appeared fortunate to escape with a one-week ban for an aggressive (to put it mildly) clear-out of the England full-back, Mike Brown. Most rugby people would suggest that of the three cases Hooper’s actions carried the greatest danger of injury, but because the low-level entry tariff is only two weeks and Hooper’s advocates could argue remorse and no previous, the ban was talked down.
No conspiracy and no bias, just a disciplinary system slightly out of step with the game.
