Rugby: All Blacks well behind pack in seeing red

All Blacks second five Sonny Bill Williams is given the red card during the second test between the All Blacks and Lions played at Westpac Stadium in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell

It's an amazing record that the All Blacks haven't lost at Eden Park for 23 years. What's probably more amazing is that prior to Sonny Bill Williams being ordered off on Saturday, the All Blacks hadn't been shown a red card in 50 years.

That's amazing on two fronts. The first is on a statistical basis. The All Blacks are an anomaly when it comes to red cards. Of the major playing nations, they have collected the lowest total of red cards in the professional era with just one.

The next lowest is Australia who have been shown only two since the game turned professional. Measured across history, the All Blacks sit alongside Ireland and Scotland with just three reds in total, while up the top of the list are France and Italy who have each been shown 11.

Good discipline has been a factor in the All Blacks' success since 1996. The threshold for cards has constantly dropped in the last 20 years as technology has been able to have greater ability to influence the decision-making processes of the officials. And yet despite cameras becoming more intrusive and officialdom less tolerant, the All Blacks have still managed to avoid being shown red cards.

No wonder they bristle at any suggestion they are a dirty team and yet equally, it is no wonder that the accusations that they are a dirty team persist despite the lack of statistical foundation.

In the 50 years since Colin Meads was sent off at Murrayfield, the All Blacks winning narrative has been punctuated with a litany of incidents that would, in all objectivity have reached the red card threshold.

In 1987 Buck Shelford punched Huw Richards unconscious in the World Cup semifinal, only for the Welsh lock, who had started the fracas, to be sent off once.

Richard Loe infamously spread Wallabies wing Paul Carozza's nose across his face with his elbow in 1992 and the following year, Jamie Joseph stamped on the ankle of England's debutante halfback Kieran Bracken.

In 2012 Andrew Hore lashed out and knocked out Welsh lock Bradley Davis in the early minutes of their November test and yet avoided censure at the time, only to be cited after the game and handed a five-week suspension.

No red cards, though, and the All Blacks, if they are honest, will agree that they have ridden their luck to some extent in the last 30 years.

They aren't ill-disciplined by trait, yet they have had a number of ill-disciplined moments that have gone unpunished and as a consequence, it has bred the perception that the All Blacks get away with things other teams don't.

That's been a source of frustration at times as it has become a panacea explanation to justify why the All Blacks have been so good for so long.

Like all good teams, they do probably win a few refereeing decisions on the back of their continued excellence and dominance. Referees probably do form occasional pictures that are based more on what they think they are seeing based on perception and reputation.

The lack of red cards matched against the known acts of foul play has strengthened the critics' view that the All Blacks live a charmed life so the fate of Williams, while hardly to be encouraged or condoned, has perhaps done the team a favour in the long term.

Williams' red card is irrefutable evidence the All Blacks are subjected to the same scrutiny from officialdom as every other team.

And the irony of it all perhaps, is that of the acts of foul play committed by All Blacks since Shelford's knock-out blow, his would be the least worthy of a red card in that it was clearly unintentional.