Pichot on consistency and the Frank's incident.

[Cruz_del_Sur]

I know they closed the Aus vs NZ threat but i believe this is worth a read. WR's vice president view on Franks' incident and how SANZAAR dealt with it should be news worthy enough.

[FONT=&quot]In an interview with Kiwi news site [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Stuff[/FONT][FONT=&quot], Pichot revealed that he received a call from Argentinian lock Mariano Galarza on Wednesday, who was suspended for nine weeks after being found guilty of eye-gouging All Blacks lock Brodie Retallick during their opening World Cup match.

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]The suspension rightly ended Galarza’s tournament, but SANZAAR’s failure to consistently apply the game’s laws angered the second row forward. As a result, Pichot was left embarrassed when Galarza questioned him on the subject.

[/FONT]"I cannot explain to Galarza who was suspended for an offence on an All Black when he touched his face and the same case or worse last weekend doesn’t even get cited. It’s wrong.


How do I explain to Galarza when he phoned me that he was left out of the World Cup from the start to the finish and another player in the same situation one year later doesn’t even get cited.


What do I tell him as an administrator of the game? I am completely embarrassed. He dreamed of playing in a World Cup and I can now not tell him that it was fair."
[FONT=&quot]
Source: [/FONT]http://www.punditarena.com/rugby/adrumm/world-rugby-chief-left-embarrassed-sanzaars-handling-owen-franks-incident/[FONT=&quot]


[/FONT]

 

[ratsapprentice]

The correct way forward, IMO, is to decide what the punishment should be and consistently apply it from now on.

Not to consistently apply a punishment that many didn't feel was warranted in the first place, just in the name of consistency.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

The Comments underneath the stuff NZ article are gold.

 

[Sker]

So before a flame war erupts and people start getting personal again, I want to get a few objective, relatively emotionless opinions.

IS the big issue the consistency of the citing process where most people believe Franks didn't do / intend anything malicious but should still be cited because it would be the fair thing to do. (seems the most popular opinion?)

Or is the big issue that Franks did do something malicious and should be punished because it was a douche move?

OR Franks didn't do anything malicious and what he did was perfectly fine within the laws of the game / universe / sportsmanship.

Let's keep it relaxed this time, not looking at anyone in particular.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

Consistency, 100%.
Galarza's case is a perfect example. There was no intention there either, just a reckless use of the hands, for which he paid dearly.
I recall getting (rightly) lectured last year about how intent was irrelevant and that even a mere contact with the "eye area" were enough to warrant someone a 13 week suspension.
Fair enough... as long as it applies to everyone else too.

 

[ratsapprentice]

So you think we should continue penalising people for the sake of consistency rather than being consistent in not punishing people for things like this?

...Even though you don't think it should be punished?

 

[Sker]

Consistency, 100%.
Galarza's case is a perfect example. There was no intention there either, just a reckless use of the hands, for which he paid dearly.
I recall getting (rightly) lectured last year about how intent was irrelevant and that even a mere contact with the "eye area" were enough to warrant someone a 13 week suspension.
Fair enough... as long as it applies to everyone else too.

I understand that, inconsistency is a ***** and really infuriating. So what would have been the correct move? For SANZAR to cite him or for them to release a public statement by acknowledging the issue and setting a clear cut rule that will be enforced consistently?

What I'm trying to get to, did he or anyone in his position (Galarza) 'deserve' a couple of weeks off? I understand hand in the face is a big no no, but if lack of malicious intent could be proven then a reduced sentence (maybe 2 - 4weeks?) could be given? Like the Aussie in the article said, things must happen so damn quickly on the field.

EDIT:

pretty much what ratsapprentice said

 

[Peat]

I do not believe malice should enter the citing process except as a potential cause for mitigation or extra punishment right at the end. Either their actions were illegal and potentially harmful, or they were not. That is all that should matter.

I also believe consistency is important. Without some form of consistency, it is a farce. I think that World Rugby should seek to alter the length of suspension on offences where it is wrong but until they actually do so and publicly announce so, they should keep handing out the same level of punishment. There has to be a clear demarcation point after which things change. They have not done so in this case. To use the language of Rats' sentence: they should continue punishing people for the sake of consistency because they have not signalled an intent to be consistent in not punishing people for this.

The argument over whether people in this position deserve a lesser sentence than they currently receive should be separate from the argument as to whether Franks deserved punishment.

Also, if SANZAR had set a clear cut rule on this sort of action in the course of a citing that contradicts the precedents, I would be livid. That would be incredibly unjust, incredibly suspicious, and above and beyond the powers they should have. But then, the fact World Rugby couldn't appeal the lack of citing in this occasion says SANZAR have more powers that they should have. No major tournament should be beyond WR's ability to demand re-examination of a citing call.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

So you think we should continue penalising people for the sake of consistency rather than being consistent in not punishing people for things like this?

...Even though you don't think it should be punished?

Yes, absolutely.
You are mixing up two things here. One is about the enforcement of the rules and the other one is about what the rules actually dictate. The rules are clear. If you do not like the rules, change them, but do not cherry pick to whom those rules apply. Consistency, for the lack of a better word, is the closest thing to fairness every sport or competitive activity has. If you take it away it becomes a bloody joke.

WR made a judgement call when they decided to penalize these sort of plays. It was a conscious call, not a random one. They made a rule/law, interpreted it and they enforced it. They even went as far as giving detailed explanations of what/why/how it was interpreted and enforced.

As a professional player, you push limits and those interpretations are the lines you should not cross. They condition the way you play. So if WR tells you "if you do A, the consequence is B", i expect them to be applied to everyone because quite a lot of players are not doing A in order to avoid B. Players, when on the pitch, aren't allowed to question the laws of the game. They are there to respect them and get penalized when they do not. The very least they deserve is some effort from the ones enforcing the rules to do so fairly. Without consistency, fairness is simply impossible.

The argument over whether people in this position deserve a lesser sentence than they currently receive should be separate from the argument as to whether Franks deserved punishment.

+10000

- - - Updated - - -

What I'm trying to get to, did he or anyone in his position (Galarza) 'deserve' a couple of weeks off? I understand hand in the face is a big no no, but if lack of malicious intent could be proven then a reduced sentence (maybe 2 - 4weeks?) could be given? Like the Aussie in the article said, things must happen so damn quickly on the field.

Since consistency is obviously important to me, i'll give you the exact same answer i gave when Galarza's incident occurred.

I see two camps here (disregarding trolling and flaming).

1) The people who see what happened, check the rules, and see that according to both the established procedure has been applied appropriately.
2) The people who see what happened and although understand and agree with 1)'s procedure, think/feel the punishment the rules dictate doesn't fit the crime in this instance. Not because the rules do/don't say so, but because they can think of quite a few instances where in their eyes more heinous crimes have received more lenient punishments.

We'll never find a middle ground because we are talking about different things. j'nuh's post has a good balance between 1) and 2).

So no, i don't think the punishment fits the crime, but as I was told back then, and rightly so, rules are rules. Fair enough. Rules are rules now too and i'd like to see them enforced.

Just to be absolutely clear: i'd have no problem if the rules change. Consistency, in the context of what we are discussing, is about the application of the same set of rules. If the rules change i would have no problem with "inconsistency" (technically it wouldn't be inconsistent at all).

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

I can't believe someone as blunt and direct as Pichot has made it to near the top of world rugby. I can't say I've disagreed with anything he has said so far but I can imagine he'll be quietly being asked to be a little more diplomatic!

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Right to approach this based entirely on what is visible. What do we know happened from video footage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk4klCK4f_o

- Franks is behind an Aussie in a maul, his arm is originally wrapped around the Aussies waist area
- Franks removes his left arm from the waist and grabs the Aussies again, wrapping his arm across the Aussies neck area.
- Franks then removes his arm again and repositions his hand to it grabs the Aussie in the forehead area
- Franks slides his hands down whilst his hand is in a clawed shape to the eye area. At this point Franks arm is above the Aussies arm. He moves his hand around over the eye area of the Aussie until his fingers are directly in the Aussies eyes.
- Franks repositions his hand again so his fingers actualy poke into the eye sockets. This is the picture: http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/...pg&width=650&api_key=kq7wnrk4eun47vz9c5xuj3mc

- At this stage the referee is telling Franks to stop and the Aussie moves his arm knocking Franks away and now Franks arm is underneath the Aussie one. The video now switches to the front view and this is after what I've just said happened and remember this is AFTER the ref has spotted it and told him to stop.
- Video switches to front view at 18 seconds, notice his arm is now underneath the Aussie one? Next incident.
- Franks hand is on the Aussie shoulder and wrapped around the chest area.
- Franks now moves his hand from the chest and drives it into the eye area, all the time looking at where he is placing his hand. This is AFTER the ref had told him to stop and is a second attempt at going for the eyes. https://s12.postimg.org/9y1ub4alp/Gouge.jpg

So I don't care what the commentators say, this is a blatant attempt at gouging as he went for the eyes twice, both times he was looking at what he was doing and intentionally repositioned his hand from a legal poosition when there was nothing forcing him to. It was intentional, there cannot realistically be any dispute about this now... What is really contentious is the disparity between how this was treated, a clearly intentional attempt, compared to other incidents. Quite frankly the whole thing has been a complete farce. Even if we assume no intent, that is 2 seperate occasions he has had his fingers in another players eyes, the second after being told to stop by the referee.

There is no defence, a citeable offense and the fact he has got off with nothing is as much a joke as the olympic boxing scores. If you still disagree, have both the images I linked to open, you will see Franks making identical attempts at the eyes yet they are clearly 2 different times (one his arm is above the Aussie one, the other his arm is coming underneath the Aussies arm). Having your hand accidently slide over the eye area is one thing but to purposely move your hand into that area twice cannot be dismissed as an accident.

 

[smartcooky]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk4klCK4f_o

While this video clearly shows that Franks thumb went into the area of Douglas' left eye socket, it also clearly shows a couple of other things...

1. That Franks reacted immediately to what he felt and a got his thumb out of it immediately.
2. That Kane Douglas did not act like a player who was being eye gouged.

Now I know why Poite didn't ping him, why he wasn't cited, and especially, why Douglas didn't make a formal complaint...because there was no eye-gouge.

I wouldn't have made a complaint either based on this video evidence. No wonder the ARU/Wallabies have gone all silent on this issue. iF Douglas had really been eye-gouged, the Sydney papers would be publishing images of Kane Douglas' injuries.

Another thing this footage makes apparent is that this photo...

....does not show what some people think it does. Franks' fingers are nowhere near Douglas' right eye.

This is a great example of why you should be suspicious of any still image that might have been cherry-picked to show you what a biased media want you to see, as well as a graphic illustration of why Citing Officers use all of the camera angles to come to decisions on citing players.

This isn't to say that Franks was completely innocent of any wrong doing. He certainly did put his hands into the eye-area of an opponent, and was just stupid to be taking the risk, but as I have made clear earlier, this infringement of hands in the eye area is not an automatic citing, and I can fully understand why he wasn't cited... his actions simply do not pass the red card test.

Even if he had been cited, any Lawyer with the legal skills of a monkey could use this piece of video evidence to get him off.

ETA: Oh, and by the way, Galarza should never have even been cited for what he did to Retallick.

This was NOT an eye-gouge in any way shape for form. Galarza's fingers aren't even in Retallick's eye socket,. This was just unfortunate positioning of Galarza's hands, a penalty only, so unless there was video evidence showing something much worse than this, it does not pass the red card test either IMO.

 

[die_mole]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk4klCK4f_o

While this video clearly shows that Franks thumb went into the area of Douglas' left eye socket, it also clearly shows a couple of other things...

1. That Franks reacted immediately to what he felt and a got his thumb out of it immediately.
2. That Kane Douglas did not act like a player who was being eye gouged.

Now I know why Poite didn't ping him, why he wasn't cited, and especially, why Douglas didn't make a formal complaint...because there was no eye-gouge.

I wouldn't have made a complaint either based on this video evidence. No wonder the ARU/Wallabies have gone all silent on this issue. iF Douglas had really been eye-gouged, the Sydney papers would be publishing images of Kane Douglas' injuries.

Another thing this footage makes apparent is that this photo...

....does not show what some people think it does. Franks' fingers are nowhere near Douglas' right eye.

This is a great example of why you should be suspicious of any still image that might have been cherry-picked to show you what a biased media want you to see, as well as a graphic illustration of why Citing Officers use all of the camera angles to come to decisions on citing players.

This isn't to say that Franks was completely innocent of any wrong doing. He certainly did put his hands into the eye-area of an opponent, and was just stupid to be taking the risk, but as I have made clear earlier, this infringement of hands in the eye area is not an automatic citing, and I can fully understand why he wasn't cited... his actions simply do not pass the red card test.

Even if he had been cited, any Lawyer with the legal skills of a monkey could use this piece of video evidence to get him off.

i agree with everything except for the understanding of Poite not pinging him... dangerous play is not viewed as something where you wave it off because of materiality... he should have penalized and admonished and MAYBE a yellow but a red would have been ridiculous

as i've said before world rugby needs to get their **** together... the different governing bodies have different precedents for the same action and eye-gouging or eye contact is not mentioned at all in the lawbook.

 

[smartcooky]

i agree with everything except for the understanding of Poite not pinging him... dangerous play is not viewed as something where you wave it off because of materiality... he should have penalized and admonished and MAYBE a yellow but a red would have been ridiculous

Perhaps. I am flexible on that point. Plenty of referees will play on if there is a high tackle or another act of foul play, and when advantage expires, they won't come back to address the issue unless they think its serious enough for a yellow card (as the referee did with Bryan Habana in the RWC semi final v NZ) , but as I have pointed out earlier, the Citing Commissioner didn't even give the lesser sanction of a Citing Commissioner's Warning (effectively, a post match yellow card) so he didn't even think this warranted a yellow card

as i've said before world rugby needs to get their **** together... the different governing bodies have different precedents for the same action and eye-gouging or eye contact is not mentioned at all in the lawbook.

100%

What we need is transparency and clarity around the citing process. If the the CC is looking at footage with a view to a possible citing, he should be required to explain why he did or did not cite the player, or did or did not give a CC warning. That explanation should be made public.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk4klCK4f_o

While this video clearly shows that Franks thumb went into the area of Douglas' left eye socket, it also clearly shows a couple of other things...

1. That Franks reacted immediately to what he felt and a got his thumb out of it immediately.
2. That Kane Douglas did not act like a player who was being eye gouged.

Now I know why Poite didn't ping him, why he wasn't cited, and especially, why Douglas didn't make a formal complaint...because there was no eye-gouge.

I wouldn't have made a complaint either based on this video evidence. No wonder the ARU/Wallabies have gone all silent on this issue. iF Douglas had really been eye-gouged, the Sydney papers would be publishing images of Kane Douglas' injuries.

Another thing this footage makes apparent is that this photo...

....does not show what some people think it does. Franks' fingers are nowhere near Douglas' right eye.

This is a great example of why you should be suspicious of any still image that might have been cherry-picked to show you what a biased media want you to see, as well as a graphic illustration of why Citing Officers use all of the camera angles to come to decisions on citing players.

This isn't to say that Franks was completely innocent of any wrong doing. He certainly did put his hands into the eye-area of an opponent, and was just stupid to be taking the risk, but as I have made clear earlier, this infringement of hands in the eye area is not an automatic citing, and I can fully understand why he wasn't cited... his actions simply do not pass the red card test.

Even if he had been cited, any Lawyer with the legal skills of a monkey could use this piece of video evidence to get him off.

ETA: Oh, and by the way, Galarza should never have even been cited for what he did to Retallick.

This was NOT an eye-gouge in any way shape for form. Galarza's fingers aren't even in Retallick's eye socket,. This was just unfortunate positioning of Galarza's hands, a penalty only, so unless there was video evidence showing something much worse than this, it does not pass the red card test either IMO.

The video clearly shows Franks moving his hand from a legal position to the eye area on TWO seperate occasions! That alone is deemed dangerous enough based on what happened to Ashton and Francis. The first his fingers are all over the eye area and the second he makes a clear attempt to move his hand from the chest area and stuff it in the face of the Aussie. You say it's accidental, what the hell was his hand even doing there TWICE? It clearly didn't slip as both times he made a clear effort to remove his hand from where it already was legally and redirected it to the face. Let me reiterate, it happened TWICE. This was not a once off, he made TWO attempts and both times he went straight to the eye area. How on Earth can that be justified as unintentional? Even if we are being lenient, there is no way that he should have got away unpunished. What more do you need to count as a gouge? Do you literally need players ramming their fingers in like the Mountain before it is deemed a gouge?

 

[Gavin]

Do you literally need players ramming their fingers in like the Mountain before it is deemed a gouge?

Only if it's a Kiwi

 

[die_mole]

There is no law against eye gouging or contact to the eye area. The problem is inconsistency in terms of what is that ambiguous "dangerous play" that exists in the law book

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

"Nah mate, not gouging. Oberyn didn't complain after."

 

[Bada-Bing!]

So I have two questions:

1. What is this "red card" threshold which SANZAR says needs to be passed in order for there to be a citing when a player makes a "reckless" at best contact with the eye area and this is what Franks at minimum does? Is it making contact with the eye area and putting pressure on it?

2. Why does world rugby's sanctions for foul play mention "contact with eye(s) or the eye area" and not specifically eye gouging or pressing or tearing the eye using the fingers?

If Garlarza did not eye gouge, then neither did Tom Francis http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/35796218, but he was banned for 8 weeks for "appearing to make contact with the eye/eye area". Joubert penalises Francis for being reckless "for having his fingers close to or in the [Dan Cole's] eyes". So the Six Nations disciplinary committee then concluded that Francis's offence met this "red card" threshold?

"The disciplinary committee was then required to consider aggravating and mitigating factors, which it did before concluding that the appropriate sanction be a playing suspension of eight weeks," World Rugby added.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

smartcooky, if you don't mind, how do you reconcile what you've posted here (and in the Aus vs NZ thread) with this?
To keep it clean, i'll repost the relevant part here. Bolds and underlines are mine.

Is the last poster missing something , LEAVE the head alone and nine weeks suspension never happens period.

100% this.

The head and eyes are sacrosanct. If you mess around getting your hands near opponents eyes, you only have yourself to blame if you make contact with them and end up banned. There is no good reason to put your hands anywhere near an opponent's face, and nobody makes you do so; that is down to you and you alone.

Keep your hands away from opponents faces and you wont get into that particular bit of trouble.

I'm no expert, but it looks as if things were crystal clear to you when it was an Argentine placing his hand over a New Zealander's eye area. It does seem now you are going to extreme lengths to justify what, just a year ago, was a no brainer and deserved little or no debate.
I can't help but wondering, what has changed?