Join host Alex Chapman with special guests Buck Shelford, Leon MacDonald & Michaela Blyde as they present the latest RWC news and review the epic All Blacks v South Africa encounter. VIDEO/Spark Sport/AP/Mark Mitchell/Photo sport/Getty images
COMMENT
A wonderful opening ceremony and first few games of this Rugby World Cup and, for All Blacks supporters' and what looks to be the vast proportion of Japanese fans here, a reassuring performance from the defending champions in Yokohama. Konichiwa indeed.
And yet, while the first weekend of theninth World Cup and first in Asia has begun with a colourful mix of drama, close results and an indication that all-out attack will be prevalent, at least initially, concerns remain.
For all the pre-tournament warnings that cards will be shown without hesitation in order to protect the safety of players, it took only the second game to show that in fact that will not be the case as why Reece Hodge wasn't sent from the field by Kiwi ref Ben O'Keeffe in Australia's 39-21 victory over Fiji in Sapporo is a genuine mystery.
It is a mystery because Hodge's shoulder made contact with the head of Fijian flanker Peceli Yato, a collision after 25 minutes that forced Fiji's best player from the field for a failed concussion test and which robbed the men in white and probably every neutral observer of a player threatening to take the game, and tournament, by storm. He was having the game of his life before his afternoon was cruelly cut short.
Australia's Reece Hodge flies into a tackle against Fiji's Peceli Yato. Photo / AP
It was a try-saving collision in open play without any mitigating circumstances that O'Keeffe referred to television match official Rowan Kitt and which neither of them found to be of sufficient seriousness for even a penalty when according to World Rugby's laws it should have been a straight red card. It was almost certainly an accident, but intent doesn't matter in this case.
"We've made it very clear as to what the high tackle framework is, how it would operate and how it is there to protect them," Rolland said before the first ball was kicked at Tokyo Stadium on Friday.
"Everything we do is to protect the players," he said. "I'd be very confident that they [players] are aware of the high-tackle framework, and how it works."
They probably are, but the officials don't seem to be and that's a bizarre set of circumstances that surely needs to be put right. Fortunately for the credibility of the game and judicial process, Hodge was cited 24 hours later.
But that doesn't help Fiji, a Tier 2 nation who had a player, second-five Levani Botia, yellow carded in the second half for a ruck offence immediately after Wallabies skipper Michael Hooper joined the same breakdown via the "gate". All good, except it was the Fijian gate. He was so offside it was ludicrous.
Moments before Hooper's illegal intervention, Australian halfback Nic White did the same thing. Again, nothing to see here. One can't blame Hooper or White for breaking the laws; if you can get away with something so blatantly illegal you are virtually duty bound to do it, but how or why the officials failed to see it happening before them beggars belief.
Boks coach Rassie Erasmus stated before his side were taught a lesson by the All Blacks that top teams automatically get more respect from officials, and maybe he was on to something after all.
Hopefully it's just an aberration and a case of four match officials getting it very wrong.
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