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What Nigel Owens made of the red cards in France versus Scotland

By Liam Heagney
Nika Amashukeli shows Mohamed Haouas (No3) the red card (Photo by Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP via Getty Images)

Nigel Owens has reviewed the dramatic start to last Sunday’s Guinness Six Nations match in Paris where a red card for Grant Gilchrist of Scotland was quickly followed by another red card for France prop Mohamed Haouas. No verdict has yet emerged from the Scottish lock’s disciplinary hearing but the French front-rower was banned for four matches, a suspension that will be cut to three once he completed the World Rugby coaching intervention programme.

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In the meantime, retired centurion Test referee Owens has shared his thoughts on the decisions taken at Stade de France by referee Nika Amashukeli, first sanctioning Gilchrist for appearing to plant his shoulder in the face of Anthony Jelonch and then taking issue with Haouas for flying around the side of a ruck and banging heads with Ben White.

Hosting the latest episode in his Whistle Watch series from his farm in Wales, Owens said: “Let’s start with a red card for Scotland with Gilchrist. Pretty straightforward, a pretty clear red card to be honest. So he goes in high, he is always upright and with the shoulder there is direct contact with the head.

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“The onus is on the tackler because he hasn’t gone down, hasn’t gone down lower, hasn’t made an attempt to wrap and causes direct contact to the head. We don’t have any mitigation, we have a high degree of danger so the officials go through the framework and it’s a clear red card.”

Switching to the second red card that was brandished just minutes later by Amashukeli, Owens added: “Haouas red card, so basically what he does is he goes flying head first pretty much and makes head contact directly to the head of the Scotland scrum-half.

“What we have here is what we all want in the game is good teamwork by the team of four, so his assistants and the TMO are looking at this and they prompt the referee, ‘Have a look at this again, he leads with the head, direct contact with the head, high degree of danger, no mitigation.’

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“The referee then goes from where he was maybe thinking of the yellow card to, with the help of the team of four, now going up to a red card.”

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Jon 9 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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