There were three yellow cards in the two Tests played last Saturday between Australia and Ireland and South Africa and Scotland. There was also a penalty try.
These are serious sanctions for serious offences. The only bigger sanction would have been a red card. But both matches were played in an excellent spirit by well-mannered players and refereed by referees who know both the game and their art.
Let’s look at the following:
The yellow card for Girvan Dempsey for playing while on the ground and under
his posts. The yellow card for Joost van der Westhuizen for not getting off the ball in a tackle. The penalty try against Ireland. The yellow card for Victor Matfield. No yellow card for Patricio Noriega
That makes for plenty of discussion.
Let’s talk about the penalty try issue first of all. There were Scottish complaints that there was no penalty try in those frantic final minutes in Durban. The Springboks conceded three penalties in quick succession near their goalline. The last of them was against Joost van der Westhuizen for killing the ball at a tackle. For this Van der Westhuizen was shown a yellow card and retired from the match.
Penalty try? Not on your Nelly.
There is one reason and only one reason for awarding a penalty try. If a player voluntarily (the Law’s word) infringes any law or plays unfairly and that voluntary infringement prevents the probable scoring of a try then a penalty try is awarded.
There it is - voluntary unfair play preventing a probable try.
It has nothing to do with repeated infringements. For repeated infringementsby a player or a team there is the yellow card and, if the player persists, a red card. But the penalty try does not come into the equation.
The referee gave Van der Westhuizen a yellow card. If another Springbok had then repeated the offence, the referee could have given him, too, a yellow card. But there would still not have been a case for a penalty try unless the offence had prevented the probable scoring of a try. And so it could have gone on with Springbok numbers diminishing, penalty for penalty, without the awarding of a penalty try.
The excellent referee in Durban was right not to award the penalty try.
That takes us to Perth and the penalty try.
Just let’s look at the wording of the Law:
2 UNFAIR PLAY
(a) Voluntary offending. A player must not voluntarily infringe any Law of the Game, or play unfairly. Penalty: Penalty kick
A penalty try must be awarded if the offence prevents a try that would probably otherwise have been scored. The player who voluntarily offends must be either admonished or cautioned that a send-off will result if the offence or a similar offence is committed, or sent off. After a caution a player is temporarily suspended from the match for as period of ten minutes’ playing time. If a player repeats the offence, the player is sent off.
The words to concentrate on are voluntarily (It used to be deliberately in the older versions, probably a better word) and probably.
Look at the penalty try incident in the Perth match.
Elton Flatley chipped. Girvan Dempsey of Ireland lost the ball. Flatley footed ahead, and he and John Kelly raced after the ball as it sped to the Irish line. They made contact. Kelly fell. Falling he rolled over. Flatley ran another stride. Then he, too, fell. By this time the ball was in the Irish in-goal area and Peter Stringer skidded onto it to make it dead.
The referee, who - excusably because of the speed of things - was a bit behind play, swooped over to the posts and awarded a penalty try.
For that he must have believed that Kelly had voluntarily done something unfair and had thus prevented a try from being scored.
The voluntarily unfair act must have come from a Kelly foot which caused Flatley to stagger and fall, because by then Kelly was behind Flatley and falling.
If voluntarily means by act of will, deliberately, then Kelly must be a good stuntman or actor because it looked as if Kelly was tumbling in no position to do anything voluntarily unfair, and we need voluntary in the equation for a penalty try.
There was, it seemed, nothing wrong with the shoulder-to-shoulder contact between the two players that led to the Kelly tumble. Nor did that seem to cause the Flatley fall.
The shoulder-to-shoulder thing, by the way, is ancient law and makes sense. Obviously a player is not allowed to go out of his way to charge an opponent who is running for the ball but if the two are running shoulder to shoulder he is allowed to bump his opponent out of the way - which is why it was a pity that Daniel Carter was penalised for doing just that as he and Brent Ward ran for the ball in the Super 12 semi-final, causing the touch judge to flick out a flag. Wrongly.
Could the referee in Perth have referred the Flatley-Kelly penalty try situation to the Television Match Official? No. If it had been a Super 12 match he could have in terms of a SANZAR dispensation but not according to the IRB’s protocol on how a TMO may be used.
But back at repeated infringements, let’s look at the Law:
3 REPEATED INFRINGEMENTS
(a) Repeatedly offending. A player must not repeatedly infringe any law. Repeated infringement is a matter of fact. The question of whether or not the
player intended to infringe is irrelevant. Penalty: Penalty kick. If necessary, the player is cautioned. If the player repeats the offence, the player must be sent off.
(b) Infringements. The problem of repeated infringements usually arises with the scrum, line-out, off-side, ruck, maul or tackle laws. A player penalised for several infringements of one of these laws is cautioned and temporarily suspended from the match for a period of 10 minutes’ playing time. If the player repeats the offence, the player is sent off.
© Repeated infringements by the team. When different players of the same team repeatedly commit the same offence, the referee must decide whether or not this amounts to repeated infringement. If it does, the referee gives a general
warning to the team and if they then repeat the offence the referee cautions and temporarily suspends the guilty player(s) for a period of ten minutes’ playing time. If a player of that team then repeats the offence the referee sends off the guilty player(s). Penalty: Penalty kick. A penalty try must be awarded if the offence prevents a try that would probably otherwise have been scored.
(d) Repeated infringements: standard applied by referee. When the referee decides how many offences constitute repeated infringement, the referee must always apply a strict standard in representative and senior matches. When a player offends three times the referee must caution that player.
Lots of opportunity for referee discretion. But notice: A penalty try must be awarded if the offence prevents a try that would probably otherwise have been scored. Repeated infringement is a part of unfair play but the penalty try is
awarded only if the repeated offence prevents a try from probably being scored.
There was a case for a yellow card for repeated infringement in Perth. The first three penalties against Australia were against Patricio Noriega for the same scrum infringements. That was in the first 19 minutes of the match.
Give Noriega a yellow card and then you have the whole messy business of getting a replacement prop on and settling him into the scrums, which were a mess in any case. (24 scrums and 19 actions after the first effort to engage.) And Noriega was not penalised again which suggests that management in that area had worked.
There was indeed a yellow card in the match. The recipient was the Irish fullback Girvan Dempsey.
Ronan O’Gara kicked a boomer downfield, and the Wallabies countered through Joe Roff. Roff passed to Chris Latham who passed to Steve Kefu who passed to Latham who was lifting his long legs towards the posts when Kevin Maggs cut him down.
Girvan Dempsey arrived, from behind, on his feet and leaning over to scrabble for the ball with his hands - all legal. Jeremy Paul arrived and drove into Dempsey who sank onto his knees, still scrabbling for the ball with his hands. He was not off his feet and not entitled to handle the ball. What he had started legally became illegal, and George Gregan’s aggressive knee let him know that he was illegal. Dempsey was sent packing because “he’s off his feet playing the ball under the posts”.
Unfair act and position combined to equal a yellow card, but, interestingly for our discussion, not a penalty try, because Dempsey’s action did not prevent a try from probably being scored.
This voluntary business is important and one wonders if we should not revert to deliberate, a stronger word as voluntary has an arbitrariness about it. He volunteered; he did it voluntarily. Victor Matfield earned a yellow card for a midfield early tackle against Scotland. It looked really as if his timing was fractionally out rather than deliberately removing a player from playing when getting the ball.
Posted by Pedro at June 12, 2003 04:40 PM