'Beyond a joke' - Peyper opts for yellow again for 'reckless' collision
A week on for receiving criticism for only issuing a yellow card in URC, Referee Jaco Peyper has once against opted for the lesser sanction, this time for a heavy collision during Wales and Ireland's Six Nations game in Dublin.
Peyper was pilloried for not red carding Craig Gilroy for a shocker of a tackle on Tom Rogers when overseeing Ulster's match with Scarlets last weekend. A URC disciplinary panel has since deemed that it should have been red, and banned Gilroy for four weeks.
And again he was asked to oversee a questionable collision and again it has some fans questioning the logic, even if the collision was very different from Gilroy's far more egregious effort a week previously.
Josh Adams and Ireland pivot Johnny Sexton both went to compete for a loose ball, with the Welsh centre's shoulder appearing to collide with the Irish flyhalf's head.
Ref mic picked up the exchange between Peyper and the TMO Stuart Terheege.
"Do you want to look at that, or is it both players going hard at the ball?" asks Jaco Peyper asked the TMO following the collision. "Play it real speed... he's looking at the player, isn't he? No intention to play the ball...
"He picks the player and drops the shoulder. Yellow card."
Peyper stuck to his guns, even with some Ireland fans baying for rouge.
Ireland, inevitably, made Wales pay, making the most of their temporary one-man advantage as patient build-up play finished with an unmarked Conway going over for his second touchdown.
Sexton again added the extras, and Wales were now in damage-limitation mode, trailing 24-0.
Plenty of fans took exception to Peyper's performance on Twitter. "So in Jaco Peyper's view that is worthy of the same punishment as Craig Gilroy's?!! The standard of refereeing is beyond a joke," wrote one Tweeter.
"Adams is very lucky Peyper doesn't know his head, shoulders, knees and toes," quipped another.
Cardiff Rugby Life tweeted: "The only positive I can think for Wales is that we’re now only 40 minutes from not being refereed by Jaco Peyper again".
Latest Comments
Musk defends anonymous terrorism, fascism, threats against individuals and children etc etc But a Rugby club account….lock ‘em up!!!
Go to commentsActually the era defining moment came a few years earlier. February 2002 to be precise, when Michael D Higgins as finance minister at the time introduced his sports persons tax relief bill to the dial. As the politicians of the day stated “It seems to be another daft K Club frolic born in Kildare amongst the well-paid professional jockeys with whom the Minister plays golf” and that the scheme represented “a savage uncaring vision of Ireland and one that should be condemned”. The irfu and Leinster would be nowhere near the position they are in today without this key component of the finances.
Go to comments