Rugby videos of tackles, tries, funny incidents and more: Waikato have two carded in punch-up with Taranaki

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Waikato have two carded in punch-up with Taranaki

Waikato had all the momentum as they made a great comeback against Taranaki in the ITM Cup on Sunday, but controversial yellow cards for forwards Liam Messam and Romana Graham halted their progress as they went down 33-23 in the end.

Taranaki escaped punishment for their part in a scuffle that looked like it was started by hooker Laurence Corlett. Corlett reacted to something which led to him striking out at Messam, who in turn retaliated, only to be joined by lock Graham for an old style scrap that is rare these days.

Somehow, the assistant referee’s not only failed to name Corlett as the instigator, but also tried to dog-in the Waikato number eight, who was already sitting on the bench.

Unfortunately for Waikato the two powerful forwards being sinbinned meant an end to their rousing comeback, but they did manage to show great courage as they didn’t concede any points during that ten minute spell.

The home side were 30-3 down at one stage but managed to get to 30-23 and have the momentum going forward. The fisticuffs ended all that, costing them dearly. The frustration for Waikato afterwards lay with the fact that Corlett wasn’t pinged at all.

The sight of two Waikato men letting loose on the solitary Taranaki hooker led to the inexperienced officials recommending cards for the Hamilton men only.

Taranaki captain Craig Clarke said he wasn’t aware of exactly what happened shortly before referee Nick Briant sent the pair from the park for swinging, and quite possibly landing, a flurry of punches.

This shows yet again that when you retaliate, you're usually going to end up drawing the short straw when it comes to the onfield decisions. It's also possibly a decent case for allowing the TMO to take a look at foul play, a system that was actually trialled in the Currie Cup last season.

Time: 03:31

Last! Enough with this first bullshit.

Good scrap in my eyes need to see more of this at lower levels

By Anonymous, at August 18, 2010 3:43 pm
2 Black must go aswell

By GS, at August 18, 2010 3:47 pm
definitely,the hooker threw the first punch.
very poor call from the touch judge,doesnt matter whether he's inexperienced or not,he's 2 metres from the play,as the commentators already said

By Leeners93, at August 18, 2010 3:50 pm
I know I shouldn't say this but that fight was awesome! Were only yellow cards? I didn't understand

By filipe, at August 18, 2010 3:55 pm
Haha, the commentator saying 'tell you what, messam's on the bench but i think he won the fight' :).

Also its good to see an old fight an i dont think anyone should have been sent to the bin, im 16 an fights like this break out a lot for my age group an the ref just lets everyone sort it out through the game if its not been dangerous, which this fight wasnt, people jus put the big hits in after the fight rather than numbers being unfair an the game then been mismatched. Thats my opinion anyway.

By Cleckheaton kiwi, at August 18, 2010 4:02 pm
massive mistake from the ref!
the black hooker definetly gave 2 or 3 direct punchs.
As filipe, i also don't understand why it is just 2 yellow cards, i thought IRB wanted to fight thugs with red cards...

Sorry, but i continue to believe that super 14 and SH competitions are training camps for the refs.
i bet a beer that all the severe punishements and bans will be lauched during the NH Hcup against french horrible thugs for example.

By Flooz, at August 18, 2010 4:41 pm
Oh oh oh. Nice reaction from Taranaki footballer...

By Anonymous, at August 18, 2010 5:20 pm
'It's eight, no six, no....hang on just get a load of players off the pitch and it'll be fine". So you can't use the replay to work out who it is but you can make up the numbers however you feel, glad that got cleared up.

2 didn't get sent off but he seemed to recieve a fairly decent pasting for it.

By Nick, at August 18, 2010 5:48 pm
bringing back a bit of biff would be great.

Would love to see a cheap shot artist (like Bakkies Botha) actually be forced to stand and deliver by his equal

By cheyanqui, at August 18, 2010 6:34 pm
Good call from the ref on the far side to correct the ref 2 metres away. The greater onus was on the nearer ref to correctly call the player numbers and see more of the players involved.

At least 2 got his ass handed to him.

A good idea would be to allow a ref to review any potentially match changing penalty or call, particularly where there is ambiguity between all three refs on the field.

-KG

By Anonymous, at August 18, 2010 6:42 pm
Great to see a bit of this in the modern game. Nobody was hurt, just a good old fashioned scrap.

By Anonymous, at August 18, 2010 6:55 pm
TMO:

TMO should be available to handle Foul Play, anywhere on the pitch.

It should be done expeditiously and limiting delay in game play.

Referee or TJ should call on the mics that they saw something, and the TMO should immediately start to review. In addition, if the TMO sees something on his own, he should be able to call down and discuss.

By cheyanqui, at August 18, 2010 6:55 pm
LOL: check out the Waikato prop joining a non-existent ruck at 25" in! No idea where the ball is and assumes it's under the pile of bodies in front of him...

By Von, at August 18, 2010 7:12 pm
I think involving the TMO much more than he is already is a slippery slope (I would hate for it to become NFL-like...with challenges and all), but as long as the TMO just provided the correct information to the referee (not actually calling the shots), then it seems fine. But in that case, why not just have the referee review what just happened, as KG mentioned.

I'd rather let a few sin-binnings go unpunished, or the wrong player pinged for a penalty every once in a great while than introduce all the stoppage you'd see if players were allowed to demand that the referee review the call whenever there was a disagreement.

By le tired, at August 18, 2010 8:31 pm
lol whats so controversial about it??
okay assistant ref failed to name the taranaki player, but messam swinging some serious punches !!

By Anonymous, at August 18, 2010 9:02 pm
Messam got some good hits on the taranaki hooker. Lovin the gold old fashioned scrap!!

By Nicko, at August 19, 2010 1:06 am
Good stuff.
Yellow cards are probably fair, reds would be an insane overeaction.
Rugby will ocaisonally break out in a brawl, it's fine.
There was a time when this would barely warrant a penalty.

By Jono, at August 19, 2010 1:14 am
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

By Anonymous, at August 19, 2010 1:55 am
love to see a bit of biff but come on refs your all blind i live a few thousand miles away and i could see who threw the first punch

By f mayweather, at August 19, 2010 7:55 am
That hooker got fucking owned.

You guys are morons though. You condone a fight yet you'd be moaning like bitches if a shoulder charge happened.

By Six7six, at August 19, 2010 11:12 am
i don't think anybody needs any more TMO because things just get really slow and the game get's fragmented, i think how it is now is good because it's fair and it doesn't ruin the flow of the game. that saidit's obvious to us that n.2 threw the first punch but the other guy was holding him preventing him from leaving the ruck which is one of those fouls that never get called but are really annoying and then the he could of let go insted he retaliates and his buddy joins him two against one, i think it's fair they got sent off.

By poccio, at August 19, 2010 1:46 pm
Agree with Cheyanqui - Good to see a bit of the "biff" happening. Refs did get it wrong with the Taranaki instigator...

I prefer this type of activity as opposed to career-threatening flying headbutts and cheap-shots in the back.

By NiWiTa, at August 19, 2010 2:15 pm
2 black was being pulled and held onto so shoved and then threw a handbag punch to get the player off him, to be met with a torrent of punches for his cheek!!
Bit cheeky to have 2 or 3 on him, should have let them go toe to toe!

By Anonymous, at August 19, 2010 3:12 pm
Bit of biff just happens some time...

As for TMO; I would rather it was got rid of all together.. just bores the tits off me.. but if we do have it the ref should be able to check if he has the right offender. In this case make sure it is 6 but not to dob on Taranaki 2.

By Ned2or3, at August 20, 2010 6:06 am
to be fair to the asst.ref that was nearest the action, there were a couple of bodies between him and the offending black #2 when he got his sly digs in.

He couldn't have seen that to be honest, but getting the number wrong of the offenders in the follow up was a bit of a faux-pas.

I'm a bit disheartened at some of the comments praising this kind of brawl. It does our game no good at all to see this to be honest.

Don't think we need TMO for calls like this, in then end the citing commissioner can punish the black hooker retrospectively since he went unpunished in the game itself.

By Anonymous, at August 20, 2010 1:14 pm
Ever played rugby? ^ It's a physical game, sometimes it boils over.
Can;t take that out of the game.

By Tommo, at August 23, 2010 3:09 am