Explained: O’Mahony and Fagerson red cards

By Joe Mansfield.

WALES have benefited by their opponents being reduced to 14 men in the first two rounds of the 2021 Guinness Six Nations.

In the opening round, Ireland’s Peter O’Mahony saw red and Zander Fagerson repeated the trick for Scotland in the following week. The decisions to remove the players from the field has received some criticism from fans.

Refereeing decision are always perceptive, but in these cases the new laws have made the decisions straight forward. Any criticism of the decisions are misplaced and outdated.

In  January 2017 World Rugby updated the laws around the tackle and making contact with the head. The new laws state that “A player is deemed to have made reckless contact during a tackle or attempted tackle or during other phases of the game if in making contact, the player knew or should have known that there was a risk of making contact with the head of an opponent, but did so anyway.”

In the case of both O’Mahony and Fagerson, they had a clear line of sight and knew contact with the head would have been likely, the use of significant force means they warranted the maximum sanction of a red card.

The Zander Fagerson incident does have an element of mitigation as Stuart Hogg was attempting to roll Wyn Jones away from the ruck. That was not deemed to be enough of a mitigating factor as Hogg only moved the prop marginally upwards. If anything the movement upwards should have helped Fagerson to hit his opposite man lower. The Scottish front-row contested the red card in a disciplinary hearing and was handed a four match ban.

Scotland’s head coach Gregor Townsend was heavily critical of the red card.

“I didn’t think they showed enough of the angles, I think they only showed one slow motion angle to begin with and then took ages to find another one” Townsend said.

“I though the whole process could have been much better.” He added.

The Scotland boss raised good points about the process in which decisions are made,  but there is no doubt they reached the correct conclusion.

Here is a video of the Fagerson clear out:

 

Peter O’Mahony on the other hand, had no mitigating factors to his clear-out and accepted it was a red card offence. His compliance in his disciplinary hearing meant that his ban was reduced from six games to three.

Nick Tompkins played for Wales in both games and said he was “surprised” that he O’Mahony wasn’t given a lengthier ban.

“I”m not sure I’m going to be shouldering or elbowing people to the face any time soon” Tomkins said.

“Whatever you are doing going into these rucks you have to be controlled. Im not sure you can argue with a shoulder or an elbow to the face.

“That was one of our big key discussions before this, with how hot they are on it and how squeaky clean you’ve got to be. You’ve just got to be controlled and know what you are doing.”

Tomkins is exactly right, entry to the ruck needs to measured and controlled. Player welfare is of the utmost importance and reducing contact with the head is paramount to that.

Some critics might say ‘well what is he supposed to do in that situation?’ The answer to that is simple, arrive to the breakdown earlier and secure possession safely. That way, there is no need to make a reckless last-ditch attempt to avoid a turnover. The ‘jacklers’ need to be protected and punishing poor clear-out technique is the way to do that.