General Rugby Discussion 3

Fair Enough. Thanks

I wondered if Scotland choose a blue alternative jersey so Italy and France would have to change.

Ntamack's hearing starts at 10 today.

As Bernard Jackman says, they'll consider how he walks old ladies across the street in Tulouse and brought biscuits to the hearing, attend tackle school and he'll be back in time for the Ireland game. I'll be shocked if he's not back for Ireland.

Ntamack ban was halved from six weeks to three weeks because he acknowledged his foul play (minus another week for tackle school). What a joke.

World Rugby’s approach to player safety is absolutely laughable.

So he misses 6N v England + Toulouse v ASM + Toulouse v Bayonne

& is available thereafter

Yep, not a meaningful ban for what was a premeditated & dangerous action. Always suspected that having a dedicated Foul Play official would lead to softer on field decisions & this is a fine example of it. France couldn't avail of the 20min RC replacement in this instance, whereas Junior Kpoku got a straight RC, was replaced after 20mins and still only got a 3 week ban !.

I don't want to get into comparing offences. But O'Toole's offence did injur the player and can end careers. Ask Dan Leave.

O'Toole also got half his ban suspended. If the standard is to suspended half the ban, then they should just make the ban half as long and actually impose it fully.

What's the thinking behind suspending half the ban as standard?

How injured a player is shouldn't factor into it. Getting lucky or unlucky that the player has or hasn't an iron jaw shouldn't mitigate what you've done at all.

The Tom O'Toole incident was unfortunate. Ntamack's was not unfortunate in the slightest.

I agree entirely though that a ban should be a ban with no stupid mitigants. This nonsense of a player coming in with a sad face to acknowledge that they did indeed smash another player in the face with their shoulder and it was bold being somewhat of a reason to not punish them is laughable.

Players should be sent to tackle school regardless and it shouldn't be a mitigatant at all.

Time bans are absolutely stupid. It should be match bans and relevant to the team the ban was received with.

So if a player commits a serious offence in the Champions Cup final he gets banned for the summer. Or gets banned during the 6 Nations and misses only a few URC games that teams are not even full strength for anyway.

It works in soccer because it stops players using friendlies or games like Autumn internationals that rugby pretend aren't friendlies. You get a ban in the CC you shouldn't be allowed use the URC to get you back in time for a vital knockout game. Irish players could even count their AIL games.

GAA I believe use a hybrid of time with a minimum number of games to be served.

Yeah but if a player gets a ban in his last Six Nations game of the tournament, its not much use banning him for the following year's Six Nations game. Or the next international game when that could be a tour to Romania or Georgia.

Time bans are fine but the problem is that they're not serious enough to make any impact. They're so 'mitigated' now that they barely make any impact as they're only ever a handful of weeks which in rugby generally isn't any meaningful games. Ntamack will really miss only one meaningful game because two weeks is nothing.

And again, this 'tackle school' nonsense is some of the worst BS I've ever heard.

I remember when eye-gouging was one of the scummiest offences. These days, a repeat offender like Mapimpi somehow gets his punishment halved from 4 weeks to 2 weeks because he acknowledged that eye-gouging was something only bold boys did. Now he did get an extra 1 week because he was a repeat offender but is 1 week extra for being a repeat offender any sort of deterrent when its already been mitigated.

The punishments needs to be longer and the soft mitigation bollocks removed.

I think you can blame the home countries for this and not World Rugby. World Rugby do not run the 6 nations.