Overseas riches beginning to outweigh the Black jersey as 'players wise up' - Lima Sopoaga

For instance Aaron Smith got penalized by Barnes for sticking his hand out in the RWC in France and the TMO intervened wanting the harsher punishment (as it appears that’s where WR has the refs moving towards again), even though both Barnes and the TMO said/worded the infringement the same it would appear Barnes seemed happy to accept he should have carded him.

I actually felt sorry for Barnes in that WC/Final, he seemed to have developed a good feel for the game and ref’d those situations perfectly but was overridden but the TMO on multiple occasions.

The trouble with the law is that this weeks does look similar to Villieres, but it’s entirely possible BB was playing the man instead of the ball (which you can’t say in Villieres case). In that A Smith case there was still traffic well out from the goalline, and in that Eben example it was more deliberate and only 5m out with an overlap. That last situation had been when, for the last few years, a penalty would possible be upgraded to a card, not so much the Villiere (or Smith) example. But that’s obviously changed. Back to Beauden though, the real problem with the law (we can accept a YC as long as they are consistent) is that he could put his arm into that exact same position for ether action, tackle, or block, and the ref has no real way of knowing which. This extends to the development of certain ‘slapping’ tackle techniques, where a tacklers intent is mostly to stop the offload, and includes getting the arm in the path of the ball, whether still held by the attacker, or released by them. This action is no less illegal and deliberate in it’s intent than Ebens. It’s not even reactionary (not that you can be lenient in those situations) like Villieres. And it has the exact same effect on the game, whether its its clearly been passed to a team mate, or someone it’s trying to offload to a team mate.

Actually another aspect of contention with the law is that it is now classed as foul play. It’s been referenced that in this weeks example the pass went forward, into Barrett, so his hand wasn’t even in the correct position to block a legitimate pass, but because they ruled his intent was to block it, being foul play the forward pass is overriden. So you’ve got someone sent from the field blocking a pass that wasn’t even a pass.