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Lukhan Tui's ban adds to Reds' woes
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Lukhan Tui has been banned for three weeks for a tip tackle on Will Genia during The Reds' costly defeat to The Rebels in their Super Rugby opener last Friday.
Scott Higginbotham was hit with a three-week suspension for a dangerous tackle on Matt Philip, which resulted in the Reds captain being shown a red card early on at AAMI Park.
Tui requested a hearing after being cited for a lift-and-drive tackle on playmaker Genia and the lock was on Tuesday given the same punishment as his skipper.
Judicial Committee Chairman Michael Heron QC stated: "Having conducted a detailed review of all the available evidence, including all camera angles and additional evidence, including evidence from the player and submissions from his legal representative, Mark Martin QC, the Judicial Committee upheld the citing under Law 9.13.
"With respect to sanction the Judicial Committee deemed the act of foul play merited a low end entry point of 6 weeks due to an absence of intention and other contributing factors.
"However, taking into account mitigating factors including the Player's excellent disciplinary record and his guilty plea at the earliest possible opportunity, the Judicial Committee reduced the suspension to 3 weeks.
"The player is therefore suspended for 3 weeks, up to and including the Saturday 17 March 2018."
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Latest Comments
Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".
But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.
The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.
Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?
Go to commentsI think they just need to judge better when it's on and when it's not. If there is a disjointed chase and WJ has a forward in front of him and some space to work with then he should have a crack every time.
If the chase is perfect and the defence is numbered up then it needs to get sent back. From memory they have not really developed a plan for what to do if they take the ball on/in the 22 with a good chase and no counter attacking opportunity.
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