Hey, let's sort
this red and
yellow nonsense
KEITH Parkinson, former Natal hooker and later president of the Natal Rugby Union, says we might as well use the downtime forced on us by the coronavirus to sort out the fiasco of red and yellow cards in rugby.
"The referee for the Stormers game three weeks ago, AJ Jacobs, was seriously derelict in his duty in not showing the red card to Johan du Toit in the first 10 seconds of this match.
"In spite of the TMO exhorting the ref to show red, you could detect from Jacobs's body language that he was looking for any good reason to make it a yellow, which he eventually did.
"If this incident had happened in the second half, I bet he would have immediately produced red. I have no doubt that preying on the ref's mind was the prospect of one team playing one short for the entire 80 minutes.
"At present world rugby has a policy of penalising the team, rather than penalising the player. In the modern world of professional rugby it surely has to be the other way round.
"Rugby fans pay enormous sums of money to watch professional rugby. All of them, without exception, want to see a fair contest for the full 80 minutes. We all want our team to win, but the vast majority want it to be on the basis of a fair contest. They have paid big money and they want true value.
"In any professional rugby match any player who is carded by the referee for foul play should be automatically replaced by one of the eight substitutes on the bench. In the event of a yellow, the offending player should be off for 10 minutes and, for a red, off for the remainder of the game.
"The match will be contested for 80 minutes – 15 versus 15."
Parky says punishment for the player should be decided at an automatic inquiry that follows a red card – usually suspension for a match or more, depending on the seriousness of the offence. Yellow cards should be recorded and a tally of three should also mean suspension.
"There, I've finally got that off my chest!"
No substitutes
Parky played rugby in the amateur days, a time there was no substitution from the bench, not even for serious injury. He once completed a game for Natal against Northern Transvaal, at Loftus, with a broken arm. His teammates had to lift the arm over his prop's shoulders at scrum time. Eina! Gutsy stuff!
After the final whistle he was rushed to a Pretoria doctor who was not at all impressed by the heroism.
"You're a bloody fool, man! I could be amputating your arm right now instead of resetting it!"
Rugby spirit
PARKY presides over a regular get-together in Durban North of rugby players of yesteryear – club players, provincial caps and one Springbok. Great fun. This is the true spirit of rugby.
Sigh! But when will we be allowed to meet again? Will the International Rugby Board be allowed to gather and resolve the red/yellow debacle?
These are evil times indeed.
Tailpiece
THIS fellow goes to the doctor's wearing a hat. He whips off the hat and there's a frog, apparently growing out of the top of his head.
Doctor: "Good heavens! What's this?"
Frog: "Dunno, Doc. It started out as a boil on me backside."
Last word
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. - George Bernard Shaw
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