80+ column : Jan 23

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FRONT FIVE

A selection of five eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the ruggersphere.

“I don’t buy into that four-year cycle talk.” Andy Farrell outlines why Ireland had no uncapped players in full Six Nations squad Patrick McCarry – SportsJoe.ie

With Jelonch’s absence, 21 of the players who competed at last year’s World Cup on home soil are in the Six Nations squad France duo Anthony Jelonch and Emmanuel Meafou out of Ireland game RTÉ.ie

…current boss Gatland has admitted Ruddock is a viable option “at some stage” during the tournament Warren Gatland says one Ireland star ‘potentially available’ to Wales for Six Nations Mark Donlon – Extra.ie

“Owen Farrell joins Racing 92 from 1 July, initially singing a two-year deal.” Owen Farrell joins Racing 92 in summer Alan Dymock – Rugby World

In a poll run by the NZ Herald…41% of readers [gave] the former Ireland head coach the thumbs up….Only 37% of readers voted for Robertson Kiwis snub Razor for Schmidt SA Rugby Mag

Note – views expressed in “Front Five” links do not necessarily reflect those of HarpinOnRugby

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WRAP OF A WRAP

Thankfully we didn’t lose any actual rugby to Storm Isha but we nearly lost our wrap pod as Jay reported power outages in his area up to an hour to our recording time but he made it through and along with Rich they did a top job going back over the win at Welford Road.

If you missed it, here’s a link for Spotify but it’s also available on Apple and other platforms, please subscribe and/or leave a review if you can.

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HARPIN ON…JOE TO AUS, PREM IN CC & WHAT IS “RECKLESS”?

In our latest bonus clip we have Rich looking at some rare positive news for Australian rugby, Jay points out the success of the Premiership clubs in this season’s Champions Cup and below you see the transcript of my contribution where I harp on the continued misunderstanding when it comes to anti-concussion regulations.

RECKLESS DEFINITIONS

Well we’ve had to do a lot of rethinking of how we look at tackles over the past decade or so.  From all the talk of zero tolerance which somehow reduced itself to zero over time to the bunker system trialled at the recent Rugby World Cup that seemed to work pretty well for the most part, the game’s powers that be have made several efforts to make the game safer.

And whenever I go to harp on this topic I always feel I have to point out that safety is the driving force behind these changes, because every time there’s a debate over the way a particular on-field decision is worked out, there still seems to be a lot of people out there who just can’t get that concept.

Without fail when a red card gets flashed you’ll find somebody somewhere using one of the most triggering phrases for me right now, namely “that’s a disgraceful call there’s no way that was intentional.”  I really can’t get my head around just how this issue hasn’t been put to bed years ago.

Just this weekend we had at least two perfect examples of this in the final pool round of the Champions Cup, first there was a stamp by Bristol’s Josh Caulfield on the head of Connacht’s Finlay Bealham and then on Saturday evening Tom Ahern got the knee of Northampton’s Curtis Langdon to the head twice, with the second one leading to another red.

Now it might be wrong for me to choose these particular examples since in both cases the injured parties were players for Irish provinces which might make it look like I’m biased, but I have to look past that because the only way we can have a proper discussion about this is by taking the jersey colours out of the equation.

In Caulfield’s case the bulk of the disagreement stemmed from the referee’s use of the word “intentional” as he announced his final decision.  This led to a flurry of reactions which implied that if there was no intent, then it couldn’t be red and that literally could not be further from the truth.

On the official list of criteria that citing commissioners use to assess foul play, there are 13 items listed in order of importance.  At the top of that list is “intentional/deliberate”.  But right behind it at number 2, or b to be precise, is the word “reckless”.  I really hope the problem here is that people don’t know what that word means, rather than it’s that they don’t realise just how important recklessness is in determining a red card and further sanction.  It’s just one below actual intent and it still leads to red.

Now the referee’s ruling for the Langdon dismissal at Thomond Park made this much, much clearer. He said QUOTE “The first contact was clearly accidental. The second one we can’t say it’s intentional, but it is reckless the player is definitely injured so it is red card.” END QUOTE Not even the French accent of Monsieur Trainini could mask this very clear explanation of the Laws and guidelines right there.

I really hope we can at least come to a point where the vast majority of those enjoying these top rugby matches appreciate what’s involved in these decisions, because while it’s bad enough to see those watching at home on their sofas not understanding, when we’re still getting it from ex-players in the media in the year 2024 it really does make you feel like you’re banging your head against a brick wall which of course leads to the very kind of injuries these sanctions are genuinely trying to avoid. 

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TRUST YOUR CAPTAIN

It really bugs me to see all the speculation over Peter’s contract, especially when I see it going to such lengths as to compare his situation to others suggesting there is some kind of conspiracy at work against him and/or his province.  We don’t know enough, it’s none of our business, AND he is the ‘War God’ so let’s just trust him and get on with supporting the boys in green.

@harpinonrugby

Our 80+ column posts every Tuesday at HarpinOnRugby.com

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LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE

Nothing released at time of posting and Leinster are off until February anyway so might leave this segment aside for the next few week – besides, it’s time to start giving Irish team updates starting next Tuesday.

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FOUL PLAY ‘✓’ RED CARD ‘✖’ ME ‘?’

Having referenced the Caulfield challenge in the bonus clip which was recorded Sunday, his actual hearing came just 24 hours later and the result was disappointing if not surprising.

Please don’t get me wrong – I don’t actually want to see any player banned for a long length of time but the fact remained the player was sent off for a stamp to the head which the referee clearly described as “intentional” so I was very curious to see how the final ruling would address this because if a player is judged to have intentionally stamped on the head of an opponent surely the only option is for a lengthy ban.  

As you see below, instead, they just ignored that part of it altogether.

“Caulfield was sent off by the referee, Pierre Brousset (France), in the 13th minute of the match for stamping on the Connacht Rugby prop, Finlay Bealham, in contravention of Law 9.12.

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.”

I assumed they’d clean up the “intentional” remark like perhaps saying the ref mis-spoke and to be honest I prefer that much more to actually pretending it wasn’t said at all or at least wasn’t significant.

But on top of that, to determine it was both foul play AND not a red card is like saying 2+2=62,387 as far as I’m concerned.

How can they say this is foul play but not red card. 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 🙈 https://t.co/VYHam8NtgL

— Nigel Owens MBE (@Nigelrefowens) January 23, 2024

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“SVNS” UPDATE

The new look “SVNS” circuit gets back underway this weekend with the latest event in Perth.  Significance of this one is that it’s over three days so teams won’t have more than two matches per day which should obviously help the fitness levels.  After two rounds the women sit in 7th and the men 5th with both more than capable of moving up their respective ladders.  As ever all the action will be streamed live via Rugbypass.tv.

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🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE

Some big clashes at the top of the table as 1st plays 3rd and 2nd plays 4th in Round 13 (which is the halfway point of the regular season btw) but for me the match of the round is La Rochelle’s trip to Toulon – defeat for ROG’s men would be their 7th of the campaign and put them even further away from that elusive Brennus.

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PREMIERSHIP UPDATE

Northampton are arguably the form team in Europe right now and with winless Newcastle due to visit Franklin’s Gardens in round 12 they could well extend their lead at the top with many of the chasing pack playing each other.

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AIL UPDATE 

A lot of online chatter in women’s rugby has been about the postponements in the AIL Cup but to repeat an opinion I shared here a few weeks ago, I’m not altogether sure this represents another stick to beat the IRFU with necessarily.

Sure, it is far from a good look for senior clubs to be unable to field players in an official competition, but we need to remember why the competition exists in the first place.  

Last season both the interpro series & WAIL were done and dusted before Christmas, definitely a “stick” as mentioned above.  So this season, they turned the WAIL into a home-and-away competition AND with the expansion of the international Celtic Challenge to include an extra team, they made sure there were no league fixtures overlapping with it and instead used the cup to give the clubs some rugby in that time.

So while it is true that this ended up exposing the lack of available players, I would argue that it was done with the best intentions, while adding that it is certainly not MY intention to defend the IRFU for the sake of it.  

In this case, just to be devil’s advocate if nothing else, I’d suggest maybe they tried to offer more competitive rugby but just overshot the mark.

Anyway…back to the Celtic Challenge, and after a week off it returns to action with the table-topping Wolfhounds hosting Brython Thunder while the Colvers must travel to Glasgow.  Live coverage will be on RugbyPass.tv again.

Over on the men’s side, Tarf slipped up at home to Lansdowne allowing the chasing pack to catch up and with Hinch narrowly losing out to the Cookies it means the top four are starting to see some daylight.  Pick of the next round is an easy one with the top two going at it down in Cork.

#SupportYourLocalClub

WOMEN’S CELTIC CHALLENGE

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CHALLENGE CUP UPDATE

Even with the round of 16 pairing being decided after round 4 the highlight for me was the news from Tblisi as Black Lion may have fallen at the final hurdle and missed out on further progress but still that 17k attendance for the visit of Clérmont certainly caught the eye.

And while we’re at the bottom end of the competition we really have to mention the demise of the Scarlets this season, for a club that won a major title as relatively recently as 2017 it’s a real disappointment to see them struggling in both competitions now.

So anyway back to the competition itself, like I said there are now 16 left in contention with four dropping down from the Champions Cup which included both Ulster and Connacht, both of which face tricky challenges away to 🔝🐱🐴 opposition.

Personally I’m looking at that bracket and wondering if Benetton aren’t worth a sneaky bet to win it all?

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Georgian Rugby on the up ⬆️

More than 17,000 fans were in attendance in Tbilisi, Georgia as Black Lion took on French giants Clermont in Challenge Cup on Saturday 🔥

Black Lion already beat the Scarlets away in round 2 by 23-7 💥

Should Georgia get the chance to join the… pic.twitter.com/e6HA6U7TTl

— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) January 23, 2024

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NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

Time to hang up the blue jersey for a bit and go back to the green, in fact I’ll have to take the time to go change the logos on all the social media channels too.  On Sunday evening with no wrap pod I will instead be having fans from Ulster, Connacht & Munster on to look at Ireland’s Six Nations chances, and while I have them it would probably be rude not to ask them to harp on their own provinces a bit too. 

We should have some other content floating around as well so keep tabs with any or all of our social media channels and please comment, like, share & subscribe whenever the mood takes you.

As ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

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