Tadhg Beirne's red card rescinded after disciplinary hearing

Thanks for pretending to understand. Spoken with all the moral authority of a draft dodger - again, you’d need to walk me through how the current U20 SA team is feeding their national team…

And surely there’d be no better man around to know all about ‘tone-deaf boulder dash’.

It’s cute that you (still) take the time to load and even on occasion, answer your own questions. It must be a wonderful ego spunk for you. It’s fine that you don’t watch U20 6N rugby but you’ve gone very hard at this. I didn’t get your ‘byzantine’ reference and wasn’t aware of the sports links to the Roman Empire. Italy should really be more of a force then? Still, possession being 9 points of the law, I’d say that’s your problem and not mine.

A rugby chat platform (I get you’re new to all of this) but ‘Opponent’ was quite revealing. Is that really how you see it? I assure you not many others do. Rugby and ‘cerebral’ and ‘intellectual insecurity’… honestly can’t work out if you’re trying too hard or not hard enough.

You can’t applaud. Let’s be honest. It requires motor skills. I also don’t think you’d know how to feed yourself if you didn’t flap your mouth so often. Your own ability to dodge repeated, simple questions would make you the stand out political contender amongst us.

Something inside so strong.

I can see, that you’re one of those people who believe, that if they just keep talking in a feigned self-assured manner, no one will notice the tone-deaf boulder dash they are actually saying.

Now we’re peacocking the general NH accomplishment, are we? When your attempt to smuggle IRE into the domination narrative exploded in your face. The umpteenth attempt at spinning the yarn. But no shame, you keep moving the goalposts as if you could talk reality away. And now we’re talking other age grades all of a sudden, including some byzantine ones, that have been discontinued long ago. Even though you specifically mentioned U20’s in your OP. Just pure manipulation.

Also, you appear to be convinced, that calling your opponent obtuse in a manner utterly devoid of subtlety makes you appear cerebral and dominant, but the opposite is actually true. It’s the surest admission of intellectual insecurity.

I applause your indomitable spirit and your stoic refusal to acknowledge your plentiful self-immolations, though. You’d make a fine politician.

Oh dear - I'll really try to keep this simple…

Other rugby and tournaments exist at that age grade. But we'll get to that.

4 of the last 5 editions of the U20 championship were won by NH teams. Plenty of finals were contested entirely by NH teams. France’s victory in 2023 is the most emphatic in the competitions history. They didn't beat teams, they utterly destroyed them.

The U20 6Nations has been going for some time. In recent times (post COVID as already alluded to) Ireland managed back to back slams and a runners up spot - winning 14 and drawing 1 from 15 games in 3 seasons.

Unbeaten in 3 seasons at a time when they were up against NH teams who had great success in the U20 championship of those same years.

Drum roll… Ireland's crop from then, are now 22-23 and begining to get going at senior test level by direct capping or via the Ireland A pathways.

The best age grade team the sport has ever seen would still not dent their national team for 2-3 years at a minimum.

Have SA been winning or contesting finals for the last 5 or 6 seasons? Providing a steady stream of developed talent?

You can even just pretend to understand. That's cool.

You’re truly reality-proof. At no point was the age grade dominated by IRE. Domination requires victory. Never have Ireland won the U20 RWC. Since COVID, Ireland were 2nd, 4th, and 11th. In no way, shape and form can that be described as domination. FRA, and ENG, yes. But IRE has no business being in that sentence.

Finishing 1st, 2nd, and 4th since COVID, FRA’s average finish is 2.33, closer to silver than bronze. Second behind them are England (4,1,6) tied with South Africa (3,7,1) with the exact same average record of 3,67. Ireland with their 2nd, 4th, and 11th finish are on average 5,67, that’s two positions behind England and South Africa. So, really FRA, ENG, and SA have dominated, with NZ narrowly behind them (average 4). Then Australia (5,33), and only then Ireland (5,67) just narrowly sneaking ahead of Argentina (6 on average). So your notion of Ireland dominating the age grade since COVID is a pure pipe dream.

Funny, that you called SA’s 3rd place a “bombing“, while your average 5,67th place is somehow domination. Go figure.

SA are producing enough talent to supply their own national team, and a handful of others. Sacha FM filtered into the senior Bok squad rather successfully. So did Porthen now, or Moodie or Wessels before him. I expect Hassiem Pead, or Vusi Moyo to get their shot within a year or two. SA generally don’t have to rely on young prodigies (last such case was probably Pollard), and unlike Ireland have almost every position doubled, or tripled, so you can’t use the fact, that SA don’t rush their prospect into the national team as a proof, that they aren’t good enough. They clearly are, if they won their age grade RWC this year in such a convincing manner as they did (they beat everyone, and their narrowest victory margin was 8 points). Plenty of time for them to fine-tune their craft in Currie Cup, or URC, and get their shot at 23 to 25 years of age.

LOL, O’Driscoll played for Ireland U19 in 1998, are you sure you want to brandish that bronze age triumph? I thought we were talking since COVID, so that we wouldn’t have to address the flurry of Ireland’s 8th, 9th place finishes in the 2000s … just SMH.

The summary is, that SA age grade are currently in a considerably better position, than Ireland’s. You’re worried about the proverbial splinter in their eye, ignoring the beam in yours. If I was an Ireland fan, I’d worry about the U20s coaching team first and foremost, because boy you don’t want another Doak, who just missed two wooden spoons in one season by the narrowest of margins.

100%

Hear hear!

The internet has a strange way of doing that and I’m sure we have all been guilty of it at times. But let’s not allow yesterdays sins to cloud todays virtues. A poetic end to an enjoyable discussion

It takes one to drag it to the ditch, but it takes two to keep the white gloves on, mate.

I wish it was always so, and I wish I could say, that I was never guilty of the former, but that’d be a lie.

I’m also prone to retaliation, so I can’t really be too harsh on ol’ Josh there, can I?

Well said mate. There’s a lot to be said for a civilised disagreement between fans without having to take the argument into the gutters

Many valid points, and many I agree with. I guess we just differ on the danger of Murphy’s behavior. I could imagine being open to mitigation if he hit Wessels just that once. But when he clearly hit him again after Wessels had evidently released him, I personally see no room for mitigation from red down.

But thanks for a civilized ad rem debate. I’m sure we’ll agree, that we don’t want to see any nut-pulling, eye-gouging, or punching in rugby. Bone crunching tackles, abrasive carries, aye, that’s part of the game. But none of the insidious, high risk, high danger stuff.

It's a hard case to judged because there are so many interpretations and opinions. Your arguments are valid and well made. My interpretation is slightly different but maybe you're right about the anger. I can imagine the urgency one will feel when someone grabs hold of your balls though and how you'd do anything for them to let go. That seems likely to be the first reaction (at least to me) but maybe anger keeps him going after the release. If that's the case I agree that he should be punished, but for me there's enough mitigating circumstances to bring it down to a yellow. I should also add that I do think it meets the red card threshold if there was no mitigation at all

Thankfully common sense has finally been applied . . . . But what on earth were the people in the bunker review thinking of to convert that into a red??

Anybody who knows rugby knows that it should never have been a red. In slow motion, you can make anything look bad. Rugby isn’t played in slow motion and it’s high time lawmakers understand this.

Unsurprising. That was a silly red. He wasn't faultless though, still bolt upright in the tackle so he had only himself to blame for putting himself at risk of a red but there was no force in the collision and used his arms to cushion.

Inferior SH team helped to undeserved victory by incompetent ref.

That never happens…. Oh wait! That’s every rugby match since the start of RWC 23

Justice!

So that’s two Irish players in recent weeks who’ve had their red cards recinded on appeal.. justice has been served on a cold platter.

Poor Tadgh Beirne, there are very few players to be so often innocent than him….

It took them 5 minutes and 17 replays. And then another 7 minutes and at least another 37 replays to turn the right call call of a yellow card (which I called in seconds) into the wrong call (a red card) with the benefit of nearly 10 minutes of hindsight.

At least, after a couple more hours of deliberation and evidence hearing, the right call gets made. For something we could all see with our little layperson eyeballs. After a few beers and at close to midnight SA Time.

Now for testicle-squeezegate. With the Bulls needing to get a top Irish lawyer involved to appeal the not arbitrary at all 9 becomes 8 week ban for an incident nobody could see in any video evidence whatsoever.

And for good measure the guy who hits the ball-squeezer in retaliation gets his card rescinded.

Not a joke.

Do World Rugby go into detail regarding how the TMO and referee got it incorrect? That seems to be far more important that essentially saying sorry half a week later. Mistakes can happen, but detail into how the decision was incorrect is key if the process is to be improved.

Do World Rugby go into any detail as to how “it did not meet the red card threshold” was determined e.g. what to look for to make the correct determination in future? The more widely this information is known the more it would allow referees to make better calls on the day. Also, for captains to plead their player’s case to the referee.

World Rugby needs to do more to stop referring decisions effecting outcomes. If Beirne came back on after 10 minutes and Ireland had a fresh replacement for later on in the test, that may have made the difference.

Nuts. Imagine being new to the game in America and having to watch this; basically the best technician in the test arena at poaching the ball off the opposition getting shut down for doing his job at a Richie McCaw level years on end. No offense ref, but come on… this guy is (almost flawlessly) consistently respecting the laws of the game because he knows them well and has the anatomy to back that knowledge up. I don’t think anyone will ever remember this game. How can you completely pardon any player for being sent off in the first few minutes of a test that means so much to these players (forget the fans) and just come up with “carry on”.

Anyway. This guy is such a great player. You can’t get past him, he clearly has a massive influence on the players around him, his skillset is like that of Cheslin Kolbe in the body and soul of Martin Johnson. Other than Richard Hill (and I’m Scottish), I can’t think of any modern back five player with that level of class. The guy has rugby in his DNA.

Sanity prevails thank goodness