NZ rugby educator: It’s time to introduce the ‘orange card’

Boa Athu is technical adviser with Auckland’s champion Manukau Rovers Rugby Club and an accredited World Rugby educator.

It’s time to introduce the ‘orange card” to elite-level rugby to deal with high-tackle infringements.

That’s the view of Boa Athu, technical adviser with Auckland’s champion Manukau Rovers Rugby Club and an accredited World Rugby educator, who has long been lobbying for the introduction of a broader “safe tackle framework” at all levels of the game.

Athu said the current public brooding and navel-gazing about the state of rugby’s rules in the wake of a red card to All Black captain Sam Cane and a yellow to Springbok skipper Siya Kolisi for their respective high tackles in the World Cup final underlined the need for a more sensible means of demarcating between “incidental contact” and acts of malice and violence.

His solution was the addition of an orange card to a referee’s arsenal, reserved specifically for dealing with “incidental contact” in high tackles.

Such high tackles in professional rugby would be referred to the Television Match Official (TMO) as an “orange card” with 10 minutes in the sin bin and an automatic judicial hearing within 48 hours.

This, Athu believes, would help address a lot of the current unhappiness with misconduct rules and procedural outcomes in elite rugby matches.

“Nobody has woken up to the orange card yet,” Athus said. “But it would be the easiest way to solve a lot of these issues for players, the wider game and particularly for the spectators, who are perhaps the most maligned stakeholders in rugby.

“Let’s reserve the red card for violent or foul play where there is deliberate, clear intent and malice.

“And just as importantly, let’s not ruin the contest for spectators. Make it simple, clear and understandable for everyone. That is what is missing in rugby at the moment.”

Athu also saw an incongruity in Cane having been red-carded for a high tackle while the “victim” never required a Head Injury Assessment (HIA).

Cane’s yellow card in the first half of the final for a high tackle on South Africa’s Jesse Kriel was upgraded to red by the TMO.

“If this is for player safety and there was deemed enough force in the tackle to be a red card - why wasn’t Kriel taken off for an HIA?”

And he was astonished Cane didn’t have to face a judicial hearing, which is considered mandatory for a red card.

Athu, who has been advocating for greater tackle safety within rugby for years, also believed anyone on the receiving end of a high shot where a card was flashed needed to go off for a HIA.

“Otherwise it makes a mockery of the sanction if this is to be all about player welfare and safety.”

Athu predicted within two World Cup cycles high tackles could largely be eradicated from the game with the introduction of an orange card and a broader safe tackle framework.

Over the past four years, Athu has studied the mechanics of more than 1000 high tackles (on video) as part of his quest to make rugby safer without losing its spectator appeal as a contact sport.

His ideas for a safe tackle framework include rugby jerseys sporting a horizontal “safe tackle line” in hi-viz colours which would be set at varying heights depending on the grade of play, from waist-level for Under 13s, up to the sternum for senior players, where you tackle below the line.

“It’s the easiest way to coach players with a visual guideline and audible tag line for ‘tackle below the line’.

“When I see guys thrown out of matches on a regular basis, not because they’re dirty, but because they failed to move perfectly, that’s a shame and it’s not good for the game.”