All Blacks head coach Ian Foster has expressed his frustration at the red card for prop Ethan de Groot in his side’s big win over Namibia in Toulouse, suggesting the game needs to find consistency over sanctions for high tackles.
De Groot, a replacement, hit Namibia loose forward Adriaan Booysen high in the 72nd minute of the 71-3 demolition and will nervously await a judicial hearing which will likely decide whether he stays in the tournament.
A ban of more than two weeks could see him travelling home to New Zealand because the All Blacks will want a full complement of front rowers for the knockout stages.
Foster will pin his hopes on what appeared to be several mitigating factors – most notably Booysen’s slightly dipping motion and de Groot’s initial contact with his opponent’s shoulder. The All Blacks defended Scott Barrett’s red card against the Springboks at Twickenham recently – successfully arguing that the dismissal was sanction enough, and they will hope to do the same in France ahead of their third pool game against Italy in Lyon in a fortnight.
“It’s always frustrating,” said Foster. “My experience tells me you’ve got to go away and let it breathe for a while, and have a good look at it and go through the process.
“That happened after Twickenham [with the Barrett case], and things were pretty clear after 24 hours. There was a lot of shoulder on shoulder in that [de Groot] contact, and the player had his shoulder [treated]. That certainly looked like the target area. It’s an area people are searching for consistency in at the moment, so we’ll have to look at the video and see what happens.”
The hope for consistency with on-field and off-field sanctions and indeed even identifying incidents of foul play in the international game at the moment is a noble and yet potentially futile one.
Last weekend’s opening round of the World Cup was notable for a lack of consistency in the application of sanctions and neither was there an explanation from World Rugby about why similar incidents were being treated differently.
“We’ll have a look at it. It does take time and energy, but it’s the nature of the game,” added Foster in a statement which pretty much hit the proverbial nail on the head.
As for an 11-try demolition of a Tier 2 nation which has never won a World Cup match in 24 times of trying, Foster summed it up with: “A job done well.
“We wanted to control the game early through our pack, and the forwards did a good job of that and enabled us to look at opportunities when we felt they were on. It was a step we had to take forward, and we took it forward. Now we can refocus in Bordeaux and keep our eyes set very firmly on Italy.
“We knew people expected us to win, and sometimes those games can get loose on you and you can start searching for stuff. I liked the discipline. It came off the platform of doing some basic stuff consistently well up front.
“That gave us the opportunity to play, and we’ve got some players that are good when they get front-foot and a lot of space.”
Foster probably wasn’t as accurate about his team’s discipline.
They gave up 12 penalties to Namibia’s seven this morning – they also conceded 12 in their opening defeat in France – and some of the offside slippages in particular were unnecessary against a team of semi professionals.
And then there was de Groot’s red. It didn’t seem to be worthy of a dismissal but the All Blacks can’t say they haven’t been warned. Now they face a nervous wait.
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