Holy shit. While rugby may continue patting itself on the back for their decent humanity amid absurd human collisions, and scoff at every time Nigel Owens cracks a 'this isn't soccer' when a player displays an injury with too much exuberance, parts of the game continues to fall victim to a hideous double standard.
While rugby may continue patting itself on the back for their decent humanity amid absurd human collisions, and scoff at every time Nigel Owens cracks a 'this isn't soccer' when a player displays an injury with too much exuberance, parts of the game continues to fall victim to a hideous double standard.
In the last couple of weeks, New Zealand's Owen Franks escaped a citing for thrusting hois finger into the eye of Kane Douglas, something criticised by Brian O'Driscoll among many others.
https://youtu.be/0SOmTJBiwfY
It was further proof of rugby's infuriatingly inconsistent approach to citing incidents, and if an organisation does not punish a player for eye-gouging, then they are tolerating it.
We hope the French rugby officials do not do likewise following this utterly hideous eye-gouge by Brive's Matthieu Ugalde on Armand Batlle of Bernard Jackman's Grenoble.
Viewer's discretion is advised, it's horrific:
That is utterly hideous. We hope it is punished accordingly.
Grenoble ultimately won out, on a scoreline of 36-23. It was an extremely ill-tempered game that featured three red cards and three yellows.
