Referee Jaco Peyper of South Africa makes a call during the International Test match between the New Zealand All Blacks and Ireland. Photo / Getty images.
Referee Jaco Peyper of South Africa makes a call during the International Test match between the New Zealand All Blacks and Ireland. Photo / Getty images.
OPINION:
It is strange that many commentators – media, former players and referees – are piling in to diagnose New Zealand with an attitude problem towards concussion and of being disconnected from the rest of the world about using cards to stamp out high tackling.
Strange, when the most vocal opponent of using cards ad nauseum is England's head coach Eddie Jones.
He's been the champion of common sense for some time, but specifically he was the loudest critic during the July test window, suggesting that he would be leading the campaign to instil a more considered and realistic approach to managing test matches.
Strange, too, that New Zealand has been painted by the North as this resistant outlier clinging to the bad old days of the 1970s and 1980s when heads were bashed around like water melons, when it was an English referee, Wayne Barnes, who saw Brodie Retallick's cheekbone get smashed in the final test against Ireland by Andrew Potter, only to yellow card the offender.
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Apparently Potter "absorbed" the tackle and while Barnes is easily the best referee in the world, that sort of explanation – when Angus Ta'avao was red carded the week before - leaves an educated fan base in this part of the world wondering if they just makes things up to suit themselves in the North.
They certainly only seem to see what they want, because it was strange that no one with the ability to do anything about it, saw Irish prop Jeremy Loughman stagger-step and fall as he tried to regain his feet after a head knock in the first match against the Maori All Blacks.
It happened in the middle of the field during a stoppage in play, at least two of his team-mates were looking at him as he fell and he nearly wiped out his own halfback when he tumbled.
Debutant Roger Tuivasa-Sheck (L) and Richie Mo'unga of New Zealand talk during the International Test match between the New Zealand All Blacks and Ireland. Photo / Getty Images.
Strange, too, that this narrative of New Zealand as an archaic backwater continues to gather momentum in the North, when after failing his first HIA in the first test of the series, Ireland's captain Johnny Sexton started the second test.
He passed the protocols to do so, but in New Zealand that isn't enough. The All Blacks, for more than the last decade, have run an ultra-conservative policy regarding head injuries and have regularly left big names out of their starting team even when they have passed all the tests and are available.
The thinking here is that it is always best to give the player another week just to be sure and that applied in the second test of the series – with Sam Whitelock self-reporting concussion symptoms and then being left out of the team.
The possibility that those in the North may have to consider, is that New Zealand is indeed an outlier – but not in the way they believe.
New Zealand is arguably the world leader in concussion management. No one is suggesting it is perfect or has got everything right in the last 15 years since HIA protocols became part of the game, but rarely have there been incidents of players staying on the field when they shouldn't have.
Rarely, if ever, have players been returned to play before they are ready and Whitelock was by no means the first player to self-report a problem.
And because almost every team in New Zealand wants to play a fast, skills-based game where they attack space, contact and collision work at training is short and sharp and maybe it's because players in New Zealand have been expertly and empathetically managed that we have not yet seen worrying numbers of retired individuals who played the majority of their careers here, present with early on-set dementia or other brain-related problems.
The harrowing stories that Northern-based players involved in a class action against World Rugby, the RFU and Welsh Rugby Union, have told about the way they were managed and treated are incomprehensible to New Zealand's players who operate in a central contracting world which has enabled unified best practices to be applied across the landscape.
This idea that New Zealand is battling to adjust to current expectations around tackle heights and head contact is founded on an erroneous belief that the wider rugby populace here is in denial and 10 years behind.
What New Zealanders are struggling with is that because the North, where players have been the pawns in the war between clubs and country, and where there has been an obsession with power athletes, collisions and defensive linespeed, have got themselves into a horrible mess with more than 100 players now having joined the class action, there is no scope for common sense refereeing.
Everything on the field now must be considered with a looming court case in mind, while in New Zealand, where there is the certainty that players have been and will continue to be expertly and carefully managed, there is a desire to differentiate between avoidable and accidental head collisions.
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