Dear World Rugby... Thanks For Killing Our Game | Freddie Steward Red Card vs Ireland 2023

One of those ones where by the letter of the current law it's a red. But the law needs more room to take into account situations like this. Player did almost all he could to lessen the impact, he wasn't going for a tackle. His feet weren't planted and driving through, there was ZERO intent. That doesn't change the fact that by turning his body, as everyone does before an unwanted collision, he connected with his head. But sometimes these things are going to happen when 30 players hurl their bodies at each other, It shouldn't be an automatic red every time.

Listen to the REAL TIME ITV commentary and no one, neither the English or Irish commentators, thought is was even a major incident until it was slowed down and taken out of context. I support protecting players generally, but this is madness. There is ZERO common sense.

He ran 20m full tilt to make a tackle... then pulled out and hit the player at force with an elbow to the head... if you run 20m into a tackle and pull out last second you are responsible for causing the danger.... you are therefore also responsible to not endanger the player which in this instance took him out of the match.. as a player we need to stop head injuries and I'm fed up hearing that 'this is ruining the game'... bad tackles and contact is really ruining the game and the simple thing to do here is just complete a safe tackle. It is perhaps fairer in this instance to give a yellow... but the player put himself open to a sending off

Cynical View: The action of Steward, not trying to tackle, saw one of Ireland's most dangerous attackers have to leave the pitch. So a red card was the answer. Did England go after a few Irish players deliberately yesterday? Yes they did.

Law Change? Maybe a 20 minute sin bin (an Orange Card) be a better future option?

The French Red vs Scotland for a headbutt was a red!!

Looking forward to the RWC in France despite a lop-sided draw!!

Ricky Peth.

Sexton is consistently tyring to get opposition sent off, it's really disheartening.

The red card is correct !
If he was honest about his actions he would have stood square and prepared to tackle

Instead he turned his body to hit the player with his elbow/shoulder..
that’s intent

WTF

I've thought for a long time that Jaco Peyper was the worst referee I've ever seen. That has confirmed it. It wasn't even a penalty, as there had been a forward pass and the ball should have been dead.
It was just a completely accidental collision with no malicious intent or fault.
This is the end of my 50 years association with Union as a player, official and supporter. I'm off to support Rugby League.

Red card. Go back to school.

farrel doing farrel things

Average Jaco Peyper decision

There was zero attempt of a tackle and he turned his shoulder into the player.
Yellow card

Sounds like this opinion will be in the minority but here goes. Steward was 10 meters away from Keenan when he received the ball and still couldn't adjust his body. There was no attempt at a tackle, no wrap around with his arms. He just barged into him. It was poor and dangerous play from an international player. And it took someone out of the game. I don't see why someone who doesn't attempt to tackle correctly and makes contact with the player shouldn't be sent off.

So I suppose, under the letter of the law… they wanted him to go down as low as possible and wrap the arms and actually tackle him high? “No Mitigation” - How about the ball was thrown forward and the guy was falling low?

As an English fan, I think that was an awful decision and never a red card, although agree with a yellow…. However, for on balance, I would say that Jack Willis’ spear tackle off the maul was a straight red card at the end but got a yellow. Jaco should not be allowed to referee English games.

Yellow at the most for carelessness at the end of the day Ryan was hit and his game was over and another head shot = danger long term the Ref didnt take into consideration mitigation I woukd guess this is going to be a hugh problem in the world cup. I said before the game that England would just come to restore their reputation with a lets bash them mentality which leaves you open to penalties.

Boy oh boy...thats a red card any day of the week, I think the whinging English need to just man up and accept it. The two assist refs and the TMO unanimously agreed with the ref, great job by all. How the English can moan fils me, they had 13 plus penalties, which is too many, two spear tackles and a red card and a yellow card, great day at the office boys, and even then you lost.

It's a red card by the rules. It's a problem with the rule you have not the ref.

Kry beter musiek bra. Jou boodskap raak biete NG Kerk agtig met daai kak

Going against the consensus here, but doesn't he turn his shoulders into the tackle making it dangerous? If he stayed square and just absorbed the contact he would have been fine, just maybe come off a bit worse

You people flabbergast me. Irrespective of the law saying he should have been red carded, these collisions must be stopped or else the game we love will cease to exist within a decade. One of the reasons for the decline in New Zealand rugby is the reduced number of participants due to concerns about head injuries. These players are paid to play the game and must develop techniques to avoid these kind of situations or else pay the price. Those of you who disagree should be exposed to ex players with dementia, motor neurone disease or Parkinson’s Disease. I suggest that, if you doubters visualise your son or daughter experiencing this type of injury, you may have a different opinion.
Dr Conor O’Hanlon
Dublin

It was lazy by him, he did not go for the tackle he missed it and left his shoulder in there to bring him down, doing that there is always a chance to make contact with the head. It was cynical, he took a chance and hit his head with his shoulder, red card

As an English man
Truely proud of the boys
But not so proud of our supporters been so sour
Look the ref was correct it was dangerous .. with a small intent of badness.. there was no need to turn that much and also jumped into the tackle
It was a shoulder charge to the head
It was good reffing, worse a elbow charge

Now give the Irish thier day .. they did not make the decision

This whole blaming the reff thing is getting boring. It's time to take a step back and realize we're rugby fans, not football fans. The player rolled the dice and got themselves into that situation, it's on them. End of.

Nothing wrong with the call. Lol

It was a red card. The fool had enough time to lift his left arm, and why did the fool nog for a tackle. The ref was 💯% correct

It was unfortunate but he was the architect of his own misfortune. He had 3 choices, 1.take the tackle front on like a real man, 2. try to go to ground for the chop tackle or 3, turn around around like a scared child and put the most dangerous part of his body, shoulder and elbows into the head of the oncoming player. He choose the final option and got punished for endangering the opponent. Maybe should have been yellow but the rules say red. Stop fxxking crying all the damn time. Grow a pair you moaning Nancy. 😂😂

He wanted to do that, wanted to hit like that, an absolute stupid decision. That red card is well deserved

Sure just lets not care about concussion and brain injury. It was careless and hit the head, no mitigation, clearly a red.

Ireland deserved the win and the grand slam but that was never a red card. I just spoiled a fantastic game of rugby and the fans and players lost in the end. Congratulations to Ireland .

Ridiculous decision.. No common sense applied. Watching an impact in slow motion just made it look worse. You can see it in his face as he couldn't do anything else...

Given the speed at which this happened and the fact that the player in green had to lower himself to grab the ball the English player had few choices, go low and possibly have a catastrophic head to head contact, step aside and allow the green player through possibly to score , step a bit to the side and offer op his rib cage as a somewhat soft surface for incidental contact. In reaching fir the ball the green player inadvertently put his head at risk, not blaming but he could have slid and grabbed the ball but he went for a lower % higher payoff choice. That said it all happened in about 1 tenth of a second for both players to decide, incidental contact

If players are forced to leap out of the way of an out of control player it sort of ceases to be rugby

assasin.

"You had time to turn your shoulder???" What game was Jaco Peyper watching??? To my English and Irish brethren, I sincerely apologize! Jaco Peyper is not a ref many of us Saffas like either! Pathetic to say the least! I think our beloved game is being killed overall by Word Rugby though...

It wasn't even a penalty. It was just one of those unintentional, accidental collisions that happens in rugby, with no-one to blame.

Look at the rules being trialled in super rugby. They bring some common sense back.

none of us were expecting a red but i will say, there’s no situation where you can run into contact completely upright like that, you’re automatically risking a penalty

it’s obvs completely unintentional, Keenan runs into him head first and he can’t get out of the way which imo brings it down from a red, but i would still emphasize that there’s no situation where he doesn’t at best give away a penalty and potentially injure Keenan (which he did do) running into contact upright like that

My take: He could have gone for the tackle because the ball was a lot closer to Keenan than to Steward. He decided for the collision instead and seeing that he was not able to get to the ball, he turned his shoulder to brace for impact. It was a hard collision, he came in high, but it would have been way worse if he attempted to duck (possibly shoulder to head/head to head). As there was also no way of him getting out of th eway in time I deem the intent not deliberate but reckless, so I would give a yellow. Red card is more appropriate if there is an intent to tackle and if there is head/neck contact or tackler is upright. Accidental collision no matter the outcome shouldn't be red carded IMO

Backs shld wear scrum caps

The laws are making the refs so robotic in their decision making. It makes me think of the moment in the movie Sully, where he says “Can we get serious now?” Peyper is just reading off the laws, going through a flow chart decision process and not using any thought of his own as he is too scared of being accountable for his decision. With world rugby insisting that refs follow their flow charts there is no point having a human out there, may as well just use a combination of Hawkeye and Chat GPT.

I understand there is mitigation because Keenan is dipping slightly, but Steward is charging in with no attempt to tackle, so if Keenan hadn't dipped he would have not made any tackle anyway. Also he had time enough to turn his hip into him, which was the stupidest thing he could have done, so why didn't he have time to make an intelligent decision to dip himslef and make a tackle, the wide angle makes it look way more reckless.

Ok I need to say something cause this is pissing me off, stewart was in the defensive position. If he wasn’t going for a tackle he was in the wrong place and would’ve been an infringement anyways or just him standing around and being stupid. If he would’ve gone for a tackle, it likely would’ve been high, head to shoulder and def concussion worthy. But he didn’t which makes it dangerous for both of the players
As someone who actually plays the sport instead of just watching it in a bar without the slightest knowledge of how the sport works on the pitch, it definitely is a red card and dangerous circumstances like this are why the sport is valled dangerous

Turn your hips and lead with the elbow= dangerous play

Very harsh but the 'flavour of the month' issue has been head-contact. Ref's are in a tight spot: damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I still don't like that you said the refs in this game 'gifted Ireland the Six Nations' - just proves that the main source of motivation isn't that you want to analyse the performances of referees or the flaws in laws set by World Rugby. Your motivation is that you're jealous of teams that aren't the ones you support achieving success.

TAS, you analysis is totally wrong.
It was high, no arms, lead with the elbow. In the modern game that is always a red.
Why aren't you asking the obvious question ......"What the hell was Freddie Steward doing?" He is a liability.
Also you say it was "Impossible for him to do anything else."
No it wasn't, he could have put his hands out if front of himself, made contact with the Irish 15's shoulder, and pushed him over. Play on.
Instead, he lead with the elbow to the head. Steward has terrible defensive technique, and it got exposed. Yet again.

Mate, if you have every played rugby, you KNOW that was on purpose. Him 'bracing' for impact looks very unnatural.
At full speed, it seems okay, but when the speed is slowed down, you can see it is just an experienced dirty player, doing dirty things.
Steward steps into the tackle, making sure his arm made contact with the player's head.
If Steward wanted to make a legal tackle, he would've positioned himself for that.
If he realised the tackle was not the right decesion, he would try and back track, and he would be on his back foot when contact happens.

Steward clearly steps into the hit, and makes sure his arm makes contact with the player's head, and completes the illegal hit with as much force as possible.

This is just classic dirty play by England.

I play dirty rugby myself, and I can promise you, this is not on accident.

It's red 100%

What a whinging video. You actually spent time to plaster text all over it, which wasn't backed up by the laws. Dry your eyes, son.

ref was on drugs if he thought there was no mitigation