Ref Watch: Peyper was right to send Freddie Steward off

If we are saying that a player, who is trying to kill the ball after a knock on by his team, can lose balance, stoop down and headbutt an opponent on the arm and get them sent off we are in danger of changing rugby forever.

How can someone standing still be coming with force? It's physically impossible. The only force was the clumsy ball killing Irishman diving headfirst at Steward.

If Seward had moved his arm and been headbutted full force in the ribs, potentially cracking ribs and puncturing a lung, would he have avoided being sent off?

Just to even things up, some Irish thug blatantly smashed a prone English forward, with actual force and shock horror zero punishment.

Apologies, I'm not an expert but one thing stood out for me was the forward pass. Poor pass not just because it was forward, but because it was low too. This puts Keenan further forward AND lower than he should have been in normal play, giving Steward even less time to react. If this isn't mitigation then I don't know what is.

P

Having now studied the WR protocol on head contact, I've changed my mind and think the ref got this wrong. He jumped too quickly to the Degree of Danger and Mitigation elements. As Ollie pointed out, there first has to be Foul Play. WR tells the ref to focus on whether the action was intentional, reckless or avoidable. I don't think anyone would say that Steward's action was intentional or reckless, so the debate would be about whether it was avoidable. Equivalent to my question to which I'm still awaiting an answer: 'what should he have done differently?'. The examples of 'foul play' cited in the protocol (9.11, 9.13 and 9.20) don't seem to apply. So I think 'play on' would have been the right decision, as the WR flowchart indicates.

But having determined Foul Play, the ref's next test is Degree of Danger. Peyper determined high force. That was principally caused by the former attacker running at speed into someone who was trying to pull out. It wasn't Steward causing the high force. But under the Protocol that doesn't matter. Once the ref has determined Steward committed foul play, then the sanction is automatic, depending whether the risk is high, low or medium. Having determined high risk, I understand why he gave a red.

Obviously I disagree with some here in that I wouldn't argue for mitigation at step 4. But I don't need to. WR's own protocol gives several examples of 'Play On' (no foul):

• Sudden and significant drop in height by the ball carrier

• Player had no time to readjust

• Passive action

• Involuntary collision

• No leading arm when close to the body.

Surely most, if not all, of these apply to Steward's situation. I think Peyper and O'Driscoll got it wrong.

Anybody who doesn't condemn this kind of nonsense for the rubbish it is and call for a lifetime ban on Peyper shouldn't watch the game.

Hi Paul, I would appreciate clarification as to what foul play Peyper and the TMO concluded was committed by Steward under the Rules of the game. Was it 9.13, which seems odd as Steward was not attempting to make a tackle? Or was it 9.11, also strange as it appeared that Steward was trying to avoid collision. Or was it something else? Does there not need to be foul play before a player can be given a red card?

Everyone saying there is nothing in the laws for rugby incidents... There is! It's in the framework, which is - has there been contact to the head or neck? Yes (proceed). Has there been foul play? No - nothing happens.

This is NOT brain science peeps. World Rugby even have this in their flow charts. If you can call Freddie Stewards actions foul play - you're on something.

But in this case, if you did - there's so much mitigation for the event - the fact its not a yellow is a farce in itself. And the ARs and TMO are spineless for not correcting JP

First let me say that, under the current protocol, we shouldn't blame the referee for issuing a red card. However, I don't think the law is adequate to address this situation.

This wasn't a standard attacker v defender situation. It was a collision that took place in transition after an attack broke down. The original attacker (Keenan) carried on despite the obviously forward pass - presumably to ensure England couldn't play the advantage. Whereas the original defender (Steward) had no intention of playing an advantage and was trying to stop. Because of that misunderstanding, the former attacker went into contact with his head low (but still with the ball) whilst the former defender didn't prepare for a tackle by lowering his height as would normally be the case. [As an aside - it would be interesting to know whether Peyper would have assessed the situation identically if Keenan had failed to pick up the ball. I presume he would, although that in itself begs another question!].

In any event, I don't think the fair decision is to issue a red card in such a case. If referees are being instructed to rigidly follow a protocol, then it needs to address all possible cases on a rugby field ..... including less common ones like yesterday's. Brian O'Driscoll's emotional and over-simplistic opinion on TV yesterday still doesn't answer the question: what should Steward have done differently? If noone can answer that question satisfactorily, then it shouldn't be a red card - however serious the head injury/lawsuit problem that World Rugby has.

I saw it as the Ireland playing lowering his head and running into the England fullback, deliberate head butt and should have got a red card.

They need to replace the 'intent' in the law. At this level of play you cannot win with only 14 men on the field for an hour or more. Why not just stop the game and award it to the other team, because that, in effect is what hapens.

Aside from the head contact and whether or not the defender was protecting himself it was an illegal tackle, not a mere incident. In this case it was not a shoulder charge but a butt charge, which is an irrelevant distinction. For whatever reasons, the defender executed an illegal NFL-style no-arms tackle technique, and that is unambiguously illegal on a rugby field.

Had the illegal hit been on the attackers shoulder or torso it should have been a penalty, or yellow card if deemed cynical. However the impact of the illegal tackle was squarely on the head. An illegal tackle on the head is RED all day.

I think there is a legitimate question as to whether these laws are the best we can do. And a further question on whether there are any conceivable laws that can provide adequate safety without ruining the game.

But as it stands, Steward's choice was to get out of the way, to make a legal tackle, or not to get himself into that position in he first place.

I don't doubt that sending off Stewart was the right thing under the protocol, but the protocol should distinguish between repetitive injuries over a substantial period of time that can cause dementia later in life and a one-off clash such as the one with Stewart where there was no intent to commit foul play.

Any sport where there is movement required and opponents are interacting with each other is liable to this kind of incident, e.g., Football, basketball, hockey, etc. But they don't send someone off for the rest of the match and distort the whole event.

Whenever I watch a match, and there is a red card, my heart sinks, as the match is no longer a genuine contest between two teams. The outcome of the inquiry into the incident will be interesting. If the decision is upheld, then if there is a similar event in the first five minutes of the WC final, then that player must be sent off, and the match destroyed as a spectacle. Perhaps this sport has had its day.

Introduce mitigation and even red card reversal where an attacker leads with the head. Then you might actually reduce head injuries in rugby.

Ireland knocked it on meaning England were ‘technically’ in possession of the ball. Therefore it could be argued Keenan made an attempt to tackle/ block steward off the ball 🤷‍♂️

Rugby is fast becoming unplayable. The intensity is increasing and issues such as the Steward one will increase. If Rugby had the same cynical approach as football then manufacturing incidents would not be beyond

A players wit.

Once the legal issues of Rugby’s past are resolved it may well be that Rugby is unsustainable as a sport. There are still numerous concussion incidents and being concussed leaves a mark. Rugby cannot mitigate all of these incidents and as such has a serious ongoing problem.

The incident was in my opinion handled by the letter of the law but the law makes Rugby a farce. A good game was ruined by an incident that was:

- without intent

- not reckless

- unavoidable

- caused more by the attacker than defender (momentum)

As I said a farce

To me it looks like he's caught in two minds, to protect himself and to a lesser extent block the opponent. It also looked like Keenan was also thinking of kicking momentarily.

An unfortunate incident which would have been dealt with much better by a yellow.

The decision was correct by the letter of the framework, but I don’t think it showed much feel for the actual situation.

It was an unusual situation in that Keenan ducked late to pick up a forward pass that bounced in front of him, which he could equally have been shaping to kick until the last moment.

In real time, it was pretty clear that Steward didn’t have many options. There was no time for him to react to Keenan’s drop in height, and his reaction was to turn away from the contact.

Jonker’s insistence that he had line of sight is technically correct but doesn’t reflect that he couldn’t reasonably have predicted that the situation would unfold as it did.

Peyper’s assessment that the contact had a high degree of force ignores that most of the force was coming from Keenan with Steward decelerating and his judgement that there was direct head to shoulder contact is only possible if Steward’s shoulder is in his elbow.

A red is supported under the framework but there are also grounds for using any of the points above as mitigation, which might have been a fairer decision.

It would also have been fairer if Peyper and Jonker had been as assiduous in policing Ireland’s infringements, as in the high tackle by Hansen on Watson prior to the second try. Ireland won a 5m scrum from that, when it should very clearly have been a penalty to England.

As a non-English or

Irish fan, I doubt that BOD is more impartial than Marler, Goode etc

There was no way England were finishing that match with 15 players against world rugby's pet team.

I think my issue with this sort of situation is that handing out red cards for genuine accidents doesn't do anything to make the game safer.