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'How often do you get hands on a five-eighth at the bottom of a ruck?' - Thorn
By Online Editors
Brad Thorn joined the list of the game's luminaries to decry the decision to send off Sunwolf Ed Quirk, despite his team benefitting significantly from the decision.
The Sunwolves continued their Australian tour in Queensland against the Reds looking to pick up their first win away from home for the season, while the Reds were simply looking to finish their season on a high.
However, the game was marred by a red card decision that has widely been described as 'farcical'.
Referee Ben O’Keeffe changed the complexion of the game when he handed Ed Quirk a red card after ruling the Sunwolves flanker punched Reds first-five Hamish Stewart in the face at the bottom of a ruck.
Thorn slammed the red card shown to Quirk, labelling the alleged “closed fist” action as nothing more than a love tap.
"I suspect I sound like an old guy that's going, 'back in the day, blah blah blah', but seriously, that's not good for footy.
"I'm sitting there, I'm the opposite coach and straight away, I'm up there just going, that's no good. It just hurts the game.
"Far out, man. How hard did you have to work to find that?
The former All Blacks forward Thorn vehemently disagreed with the referee’s decision.
“For me, for a red card, it has to be something really big,” Thorn said.
“[Red cards] are for horrendous spear tackles, someone kicking someone on the ground, eye gouging horrendously or something – not love taps.”
"The five-eighth's at the bottom of the ruck, the forward gives him a little facial. Isn't that what you're supposed to do?
"Seriously. Come on, man. Come on. My sons do that in the backyard. It's beautiful. Good on them."
All Blacks and Hurricanes first-five Beauden Barrett also weighed in.
“It was a joke in my opinion,” Barrett told Newstalk ZB.
“They’ve [the referees] got to use common sense and there was certainly no force in that.
“Where’s the game going when we award red cards for little things like that?”
O’Keeffe’s ruling is justified by the lawbook, with World Rugby Law 10.4 stating that players must not strike an opponent.
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“Explain clearly how that’s not an achievement?”
It is an achievement. It is less of an achievement than he managed with Barcelona. You said that ”He has gotten better with age. By every measure.” He hasn’t. Doesn’t mean he isn’t still extremely good though!
”I thought you don’t care what certain managers did 10 years ago…”
are you really this incapable of understanding the context of what I’m saying? My point is that Gatland was a good coach ten years ago, and isn’t a good coach now. So what he did ten years ago is relevant to whether he was good ten years ago - that is pretty basic stuff.
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I was replying to your comment, given you have the memory of a goldfish and are unable to scroll up, I’m remind you what you said:
“Ireland won a long over due slam in 2009. The last embers of a golden generation was kicked on by a handful of young new players and a new senior coach. Kiss was brought in as defence coach and was the reason they won it. They’d the best defence in the game at the time. He all but invented the choke tackle. Fittingly they backed it up in the next world cup in their 2011 pool match against… Australia. The instantly iconic image of Will Genia getting rag-dolled by Stephen Ferris.”
Go to commentsMaybe, but it was not my comment. I just wanted to say that a lot of these articles which are speaking of top14 clubs interest in players transfer on all the planet are not all very serious. But if it helps these players for better contracts, why not…
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