Portugal are taking on South Africa today at Bloemfontein and some of their fans aren’t happy with the decision that match day referee Hollie Davidson made to send off
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Do you agree with the decision to red card Andre Esterhuizen for this tackle?
pic.twitter.com/KaLDhK5fwf— SA Rugby magazine (@SARugbymag) July 20, 2024
From the footage I’ve seen it doesn’t look like direct contact to the head, first impact looks to be shoulder to chest, but if the head contact is direct then Andre can’t have any complaints
At first it looked like a harsh decision, I have since seen a slow mo and there is clear head on head, slight dip by the Portuguese player but not enough for mitigation imo.
Definitely head contact by André on the Portuguese player and this meets the red card threshold
no he went down with the player still holding him and the player lost the ball forward my take ball lost forward scrum green ball
Rubbish decision. It might as well be touch rugby from now on.
By all means disagree about the rules, but don’t disagree with a referee who upholds them. No doubt at all that this is now a red card offence.
Those are the rules. I thought the ref had a good game
Tough call, but a very hard tackle, which probably deserved a penalty or at worst yellow card. Esterhuizen hit him with the shoulder first, then both heads whiplashed, both players were dipping.
I think the fact that the Portuguese player was injured by the tough tackle influenced the refs decision.
Anyway, its history.
Andre has a reputation of hitting people hard whether he is running at them or tackling them.
Ref was actually ok, but this decision for me was incorrect, Can’t wait for the 20 minute red card rule.
I f you want to be a professional rugby player, you need to take the risks, the same as the bucks. Its the same with boxing, its a contact sport.