The decision to send off Freddie Steward in England’s defeat by Ireland and then the subsequent rescinding of his red card sums up the state of rugby right now.
Confusion reigns for those on the pitch and in the stands. It’s a mess. It goes without saying every possible effort must be made to make the game safer. Player welfare should be at the heart of every conversation. But the decision to send off Steward has not made the game safer.
It makes you ask yourself the question ‘What on earth is happening in our sport?’ We’re still getting so many things wrong. That includes big refereeing calls.
Rugby has so many issues to deal with. In England, we’ve seen two Premiership clubs go bust. I actually thought the Six Nations had given rugby a much-needed shot in the arm. On the whole, this year’s Championship was fantastic. The standard was exceptional.
You can see the work done by players, coaches and referees to control physicality and accurately punish those who fall short of that duty of care. And then this happens.
Rugby is a mess after Freddie Steward was sent off for colliding with Hugo Keenan in England’s Six Nations loss to Ireland
Steward was sent off for colliding with the head of Ireland’s Hugo Keenan last weekend because he was deemed to have made a reckless and dangerous tackle.
But on Wednesday, a disciplinary panel threw out that decision and said Steward should have only been given a yellow and therefore won’t be banned.
The fiasco has sent rugby right back to square one. I remember having a conversation one day with Baroness Sue Campbell who is one of British sport’s leading figures.
She said to me: ‘Clive, the agent of change is never popular.’ I have never forgotten that and now, more than ever, rugby needs an agent of change.
When Jaco Peyper and his fellow officials decided Steward should be sent off in Dublin, the words used were that his collision with Keenan was a sending off in the ‘current climate’. What on earth does that mean?
Steward was deemed to have made a dangerous and reckless tackle before a disciplinary panel threw out the decision
The only ‘current climate’ to the sport is that it is in meltdown. The officials are working off a tick sheet when it comes to making big decisions and they are all terrified of making the wrong call or doing something to upset World Rugby which will affect their careers. That sums up the game as a whole at the moment.
Everyone is too scared to rock the boat or say something against the status quo. Oh how badly we need an agent of change. I said on TV in Dublin and in my columns after the match that I didn’t think Steward should have been sent off. I also said I thought it could have been a yellow, but I’m annoyed I did now.
I don’t think there should have been any card at all. The decision to show Steward red was one of the worst I’ve seen. I agree with a lot of what my fellow Sportsmail columnist Shaun Edwards has said on this issue. But I don’t feel sorry for the referees. They are being told to operate within the laws, but they should not be accountable to World Rugby. They should be accountable to the sport.
We all respect and admire the referees. We have no game without them. But no law is black and white. A referee has to interpret them and the Steward incident was a classic example of failing to do that. I was hugely surprised no-one from the RFU came out and defended Steward.
I don’t think there should have been any card at all – the decision was one of the worst I’ve seen
This fiasco takes rugby right back to square one – what more could Steward have done?
One of the Twickenham hierarchy should have said: ‘This isn’t right.’ Steve Borthwick and the England players commented post-match, but no-one of authority said a word until Steward’s disciplinary hearing. That’s not good enough. It is ironic that the lawyer England used to defend Steward was Richard Smith – the same man I brought into the set-up more than 20 years ago.
I was mocked for bringing a lawyer into an international rugby team, but Richard was a key member of our England outfit and he got us out of trouble at the 2003 World Cup when we briefly fielded 16 men on the field against Samoa. That mistake could have totally derailed our World Cup bid, but we escaped with a fine.
I remember another incident with Richard when Danny Grewcock was sent off against New Zealand for stamping on Dan Carter’s head in 2004. After the game, Richard went over to Danny looking at the replay on his laptop and said to him: ‘This doesn’t look good. I’m good, but I’m not that good!’ Danny pleaded guilty on that occasion and served a long ban!
I actually thought the disciplinary panel would back up Peyper’s decision to send off Steward so I think they’ve done well to be bold and admit the officials got it wrong.
A special well done again to Richard. Now, with the World Cup on the horizon, we have to make sure we get these decisions right. I’d like to see referees given a framework to work within, but also the licence to be pragmatic within the rules.
Officials need to have an empathy for the game and make decisions accordingly. Anyone with rugby knowledge or experience knows the Steward-Keenan contact was what we would call a ‘rugby incident’. There was no intent or malice from either player.
Officials need to have empathy for the game and there must be a change at the World Cup
What else could Steward have done? He told Peyper at the time: ‘I’m bracing for impact and I can’t go anywhere else. ‘It’s milliseconds. I can’t react quickly enough.’
He is spot on. Rugby needs to eradicate these mistakes now. We can’t have a repeat of the Steward scenario at big tournament games in France later this year. No referee is ever going to be perfect.
We want to minimise mistakes, but they do happen so I think the idea of a 20-minute red card is a good one.
Will we see that happen? Probably not. But we need to see a shift in policy when it comes to refereeing collisions because we can’t have a repeat of the uncertainty and madness that has been shown by the Steward situation.
We need an agent of change to stop rugby moving in the wrong direction and we need it now.
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