ERURS

Page created June 10, 2009

Hello there many groups:

• to Referees – ERURS officials and every other referee;
• to AJRA Minis – Aaron, please forward this to your minis & juniors coaches;
• to ERU Coaches and Administrators – Judy & Jo can you please forward this to all ERU Clubs Coaches / Admin;
• to HS contacts – Norma & Scott, if you could forward this to your HS coaches & contacts;
• to RA – Debby and Matt – have I missed anyone in Northern Alberta?

Please forward this page as a link to anyone else who should be advised.

Dear All,

Please see attached a Dangerous tackle from a recent match where the MOs issued a Yellow Card.

Also attached is the Judicial Officers decision from the subsequent citing and a memorandum from myself and the Chairman of the IRB Judiciary asking for sterner action to be taken by Referees when these type of tackles occur.

Please ensure this e-mail and attachments is circulated to relevant people within your unions.

Kind Regards, Paddy O’Brien of the iRB.

First, watch: What you are about to see is a Dangerous Tackle in a Super 14 (professional) match. The video depicts a defender tackling an attacking player dangerously (where the ball carrier is lifted in the tackle and then either forced or dropped to the ground). Note in particular the movement of the tackler’s (in white) arms in the two replays from different positions. This is the movement to have players avoid when tackling because it obviously turns the tackled player over into a dangerously vulnerable position.

Second, read: the citation commission decision.The tackler (de Bruyn) was dealt with by the combined efforts of the Assistant Referee (Kaplan) and the Referee (Dickinson) with the sanction being a caution and temporary suspension (yellow card). The player was subsequently cited by the Super 14 Citing Commissioner and the case was forwarded to the Super 14 Judicial Officer (Lubbe). The Judicial Committee, after some deliberation, considered the sanction of the Match Officials to be not sufficient and suspended the player for three weeks.

For our participants and ourselves as officials, young or much experienced, naive and worldly, teach your tacklers to wrap properly AND put or bring the tackled player to ground safely, head NEVER below hips.

Third, read: memorandum regarding dangerous tackles. Referees, in accordance with the instructions from Tim Gresson and Paddy O’Brien, and as we have been instructing in our Safe Rugby courses, please deal with these types of tackles severely!

To summarise, the possible scenarios when a tackler horizontally lifts a player off the ground:

1. The player is lifted and then forced or “speared” into the ground. A red card should be issued for this type of tackle. This means that the tackler should be sent off (red card) for this type of tackle.
2. The lifted player is dropped to the ground from a height with no regard to the player’s safety. A red card should be issued for this type of tackle. This means that the tackler should be sent off (red card) for this type of tackle.
3. For all other types of dangerous lifting tackles, it may be considered that a penalty or a caution and temporary suspension (yellow card) is sufficient.

Thank you for your participation in our partnership in making rugby as safe and enjoyable as possible.

Kim Groome for the ERU Referee Society

More dangerous tackles for reference:

Please note that these videos are embedded for more examples of dangerous tackles to see what they look like. These are games from different years, in different professional groups, and officiated by different referees in completely different situations. This is in no way provided in order to make comment on the difference in sanctions. I would also note that we have the benefit of video replay whereas the referees and assistants in these clips had to make on the spot decisions. kg

X legs above head is NOT SAFE

X clotheslines are NOT SAFE

X dump tackle is NOT SAFE