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'Embarrassing': Fans fume over controversial yellow card
By Sam Smith
Fans have taken to Twitter to vent their frustrations over a controversial refereeing during the Rugby championship clash between the Wallabies and Springboks in Brisbane.
After having already dished out a yellow card to Springboks halfback Faf de Klerk for a professional foul early in the first half, referee Mathew Carley was confronted with another disciplinary call just past the half hour mark when Springboks No 8 Duane Vermeulen fielded the ball from a re-start following a Handre Pollard penalty.
Vermeulen was hit by Wallabies blindside flanker Lachie Swinton in a hard-hitting tackle that was then called on by the TMO Brett Cronan for review over whether Swinton had wrapped his arms and if he had made contact with his opponent's head.
Replays showed contact was first made between the two players' shoulders before Vermeulen's and Swinton's heads collided into each other, with Carley arguing that the latter made first made contact with the former's shoulder.
Conan added that contact was then made between the two players' heads, but Carley said that the tackle was never legal as he believed Swinton led with his arm by his side in shoulder charge fashion, thus failing to wrap his arms.
Carley also said that while there was shoulder-to-shoulder contact, there he said there was simultaneous head-to-head contact, and because Vermeulen was upright throughout the entire sequence of play, there were no mitigating factors working in favour of Swinton.
With that in mind, Carley announced he was going to hand Swinton a red card, before Conan replayed the incident one more time and argued that the head-to-head collision was not simultaneous with the shoulder-to-shoulder contact.
That was enough to overturn Carley's red card decision to a yellow card, but the entire saga drew the ire of fans online, many of whom disapproved the red card, while others were unhappy that Swinton was handed a card at all.
Despite the setback, the Wallabies took a 15-12 lead with them into the half-time break.
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Latest Comments
There's no easy fix here. From a geography standpoint, South Africa is kind of on an island alone in the rugby world, much like Argentina.
They don't have enough talent to have a top tier domestic league of their own, and it won't support the union financially. Best case you could hope for would be the five extant franchises (including Cheetahs) and perhaps a team from Namimbia. Gives you a 6 team league, that's not enough. Plus again, it's just not financially sustainable either.
At the same time, it's not really great for them to be involved in either the European or the Pacific rugby set up. That said, as bad as the travel is, at least Europe makes more sense from a time zone perspective. I still think it's the least bad option. Also has done wonders for the URC.
I don't think though, that it makes very much sense to have 4 teams from the URC excluded from European qualification. Not to mention, being able to compete in the Champions Cup was a big draw for the South African clubs anyway.
So yeah, I don't really see a change that makes more sense than the less than ideal situation that already exists.
Go to commentsMoriaty refused to play for wales also he’s injured, France’s is being coy about wales, North in the dark but Sam David and jerad are you joking their not good enough
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