Rugby is drifting into dangerous territory

RED cards are not ruining rugby — inconsistent officiating is.

- LEIGHTON KOOPMAN

SPRINGBOK coach Rassie Erasmus had to choose his words carefully following a second highly questionable red card in as many games for the Springboks this past weekend against Italy.

(AFP)

And the sooner the sport’s powerbrokers admit that, the sooner we can stop pretending that the chaos unfolding weekly across Test arenas is anything other than a failure of interpretation and consistency.

This past weekend once again exposed the gulf in how referees and TMOs deal with head-contact incidents, and how the colour of a jersey — or the hemisphere a team hails from — too often appears to influence outcomes.

The narrative that strict sanctioning is protecting players and the safety of the game is only believable if those sanctions are applied evenly. Right now, they're not. Take Franco Mostert’s straight red card against Italy on Saturday.