We value your privacy

We and our partners store and/or access information on a device, such as cookies and process personal data, such as unique identifiers and standard information sent by a device for personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, and audience insights, as well as to develop and improve products.

With your permission we and our partners may use precise geolocation. You may click to consent to our and our partners’ processing as described above. Please note that some processing of your personal data may not require your consent, but you have a right to object to such processing.

More Options

Tue 27 May 2014 | 02:07
Adriaan Strauss suspended for three weeks after tip tackle

28
Comments

Cheetahs hooker Adrian Strauss will miss the first three Springbok matches of the season after he was suspended for three weeks for a lifting tackle against the Stormers on Saturday night. Strauss pleaded guilty to the charge at the disciplinary hearing.

Strauss will miss the Boks' clash with the World XV as well as the Wales series that comprises of two home Tests in June. He'll be available again for the Scotland Test on June 28.

He was hit with the three-week ban after pleading guilty to a charge of lifting Stormers winger Kobus van Wyk off the ground and failing to bring him back down safely.

It adds to the headaches for Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer, who has already had to contend with the loss of captain Jean De Villiers to injury, and today the news that Frans Steyn might also be out.

They've called in little known Bulls hooker Callie Visagie as backup to Bismarck Du Plessis, as other players in the position are either injured or unavaible due to club commitments.

"Of the players who have been part of Springbok squads in the last two seasons, Scarra Ntubeni, Chiliboy Ralepelle and Tiaan Liebenberg are injured, while Schalk Brits and Craig Burden are playing in club finals this weekend and aren't available for the camp," said Meyer.

Strauss was yellow carded by referee Stuart Berry at the time, but a SANZAR judiciary found that the incident had an entry point in the low end range, which starts at a four week suspension. "I then added two weeks as a deterrent to send a further message that this type of tackle cannot be tolerated in the game due to the risk it poses to player," said Duty Judicial Officer Adam Casseldon.

"Factors considered in mitigation included the player's excellent record extending over 33 test matches for South Africa and over 100 Super Rugby matches, his good character and the player's early admission of guilt for the tackle and remorse shown for the incident."

Based on that, Casseldon reduced the six week suspension for Strauss to three weeks.

What are your thoughts on the decision, and the 'tip-tackle' law?

Posted By: Grant Constable

28 Comments

  • memberbenefits
    8:16 AM 31/05/2014

    It didn't take long for Sam to brought up. If people can't see the difference between someone being dropped on their neck ala Sam and this then they've got some serious problems. Realise what is safe and what is not and get over it.

  • drg
    2:16 AM 29/05/2014

    Unfortunately this is where I have to get back onto my high horse again.

    You say dropping a player on his head would be a red card - I would assume you're correct...

    However because Strauss has been given a 3 week ban, the only plausible explanation to go with it, is that those who handed him the ban felt that a yellow was obviously insufficient.

    Look at it this way the correct order of punishments from least severe to most should be like this:
    1. Penalty.
    2. Yellow card
    3. Red card.
    4. Red card and a ban.

    There is no possible way that a referee who sees an incident clearly should give a yellow card - which is 10 minutes sit down - to a player who has done something so bad he needs to miss 3 weeks of rugby. If it needs a ban then it needs a red.

    So somewhere along the lines, someone has said "a 10 minute sin bin is not a severe enough punishment!" So they're suggesting the referee made a mistake and this should have been a red...

    So full circle back to what DW said: "How the hell can a tackle where the player lands on his side (hip and shoulder) be punished the same way as dropping someone on their head?"

  • kadova
    9:07 PM 28/05/2014

    Dropping the player on his head would be a red card, if i understand the IRB right.

  • drg
    6:09 PM 28/05/2014

    I think that was what I was trying to get at in another comment. There is a lot of 'tackle' there after the ball has gone. As you said a shoulder wouldn't have brought much attention - maybe a penalty, a normal tackle probably wouldn't have cause many eyelids to batter, but this tackle obviously was 'BIG' therefore draws a lot of attention.

  • drg
    6:07 PM 28/05/2014

    haha, you tell me.. Somehow the governing bodies manage it..

  • drg
    6:05 PM 28/05/2014

    ...I'm happy to agree to disagree, only thing is, how could you not get 'driving a player back' from 'you have to retreat to get into a position to form a ruck etc'...

    It's easier to read your own words I suppose, but to me it's similar to not getting 'gouging' out of the sentence 'he stuck his fingers in my eyes'...

  • remember
    4:34 PM 28/05/2014

    I could read around the words but instead choose to focus on what was actually written. It's a much surer way of ensuring there's no misinterpretation.

    I'm afraid for sanity's sake I'm going to have to agree to disagree. That's the beauty of opinions both objective and subjective.

  • drg
    2:49 PM 28/05/2014

    You couldn't read around the words and interpret 'driving a player back' in that lot?:

    "Really? As far as I'm aware they often really balls up momentum, now your forward running is going backwards and you have to retreat to get into a position to form a ruck, the defending team are going forward at the breakdown and hey ho! turnovers.."

  • ruppansy
    1:48 PM 28/05/2014

    Completely agree with you on this tip tackle DanKnapp, unlike the Habana incident (which would have been a penalty had he milked it or not). Lift and tip are too dangerous to go unchecked. And hey, I don't need to incite an insult from you this time either.

  • 1:38 PM 28/05/2014

    Well said!

  • danknapp
    11:41 AM 28/05/2014

    Speedee, I competely agree with you. There is a theme on these boards that "the game is going soft" but if there is one unifying message from doctors and medics within the game, it is that the collisions are harder, players are bigger and faster, and the intensity is increased. We don't want to end up with an NFL-like game where the average playing career in certain positions is 4 years.

    Rugby is still an intensely physical game; it is simply a matter of making sure that it remains a physical game without becoming ludicrously dangerous. Lift and tip tackles are too dangerous to be allowed to continue unchecked - the 'legs about the horizontal' rule is an easy to enforce way to try to bring this about.

  • remember
    10:14 AM 28/05/2014

    ...which is universally acknowledged as being slow ball.

    Your defence is 'driving a player back' which wasn't referenced in the original post. The topic is about lifting a player in the tackle. Nobody would argue that driving a player back in the tackle is an effective game changer but it can be done effectively and safely without putting yourself in a position where you may face penalty.

  • drg
    9:47 AM 28/05/2014

    Thought I did, however I still disagree, driving a player back puts every attacker on the back foot., a wrap tackle can form a maul...

  • reality
    8:43 AM 28/05/2014

    Did anyone notice Willie Le Roux running over to protect the Cheetahs player who was surrounded by Stormers players only to realise that it was actually just a medic with an orange t-shirt?

  • reality
    8:39 AM 28/05/2014

    The problem - if it can be called that - with the Bowden tackle is that O'Connor reacts in the perfect manner. He realises what's happening so hangs on to Bowden's shirt for dear life and therefore prevents himself from falling back on his head/shoulders. That kind of reaction isn't guaranteed though, and if you get a player who in the situation panics and twists and turns, or you get Bryan Habana who actually launches himself backwards towards the ground, head-first, then the outcome would be very different.

    The point I'm making is that to a large extent the outcome of the tackle is out of the control of the tackler, and the difference between a great dump tackle and a land-head-first tackle is very much dependent on how the tackled player reacts.

  • remember
    8:35 AM 28/05/2014

    Probably best to quote his whole sentence:

    "they don't slow down the momentum of an attacking play like a wrap tackle"

    I agree, they come no where near to a wrap tackle for slowing down play so he's spot on.

  • totesmcgoates
    7:22 AM 28/05/2014

    Worse than Bastereaud's hit from the weekend but not by a whole lot.

    I guess the theory is that while this tackle in itself wasn't inherently dangerous, these types of situations can be 'potentially' dangerous if the player exercises less control than the examples we've seen from the weekend.

  • drg
    11:10 PM 27/05/2014

    For someone who claims to be a referee, claims to teach young'uns and claims to have been a 'old' front rower since the dawn of time, you sure seem uneducated when it comes to the rugby of old...

  • drg
    11:06 PM 27/05/2014

    "they don't slow down the momentum of an attacking play"

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdURHWLWMUo

    Really? As far as I'm aware they often really balls up momentum, now your forward running is going backwards and you have to retreat to get into a position to form a ruck, the defending team are going forward at the breakdown and hey ho! turnovers..

  • finedisregard
    10:11 PM 27/05/2014

    Because machismo is part of rugby? You don't get dumped if you go into contact at a low body angle.

  • finedisregard
    10:09 PM 27/05/2014

    Why do we have to accept that? At the end of the day the central question is whose game is it, the players and fans or the refs and irb? You say we should just shut up and accept whatever law change these clowns come up with without question? No way Jose!

    The irb makes these rules up monolithically and has an agenda. I ref and at every meeting it comes down from above "we" want to see more of this and less of that. Who is "we"?

    Rugby should exist primarily for the experience of the players playing the game, secondly for fans, and not at all for administrators and officials who are there to serve the players and fans' interests because hopefully, they are/were players and are fans too...

  • juggernauter
    7:29 PM 27/05/2014

    As far as I'm concerned, a dump tackle occurs when you set up to tackle a player and get your arms and shoulders below his waistline, grabbing the back of his thighs and pushing your shoulder into his waist with your knees bended. Then you stand up and drive him forwards (or backwards for him), making he lose ground and then putting him down on the turf in line with your body, without twistig, shifting or lifting his legs above his waist, so that he lands on his back.

    It's a tackle technique that demands total control of the situation of the ball carrier's body during the tackle, and that's really effective, as it stops runners dead on their tracks and makes him lose ground. It's also a very dficult tackle to perform correctly, as it's way more easy to just lift a player spectacularly and then just drop him, which is really dangerous, than to be aware of the position of the player during the whole tackle.

    Here's what I think is a perfectly execured dump tackle - Dan Bowden on James O'Connor. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdURHWLWMUo

    Cheers

  • welshosprey
    7:10 PM 27/05/2014

    Another pathetic ban. You could maybe yellow card him for a late hit but thats about it.

  • browner
    6:38 PM 27/05/2014

    I keep seeing the description " dump tackle" ???

    the laws of the game dont define what this is supposdd to mean type, so could one of the advocates please fully define exactly the characteristics that constitute a DUMP Tackle

    ???

  • drg
    6:32 PM 27/05/2014

    ...Why do I actually feel surprised?

    I come onto RD I see the title of this video and I know what is coming, it's not going to be nasty, it's going to be another pathetic decision by some clot with a beige cardigan to ban someone for something that is; at most, worth something halfway between a yellow and a penalty and that is that. Yet, I still feel surprised.

    I can accept a yellow, there was a lot of tackle a long time after the ball had gone, had he clattered the guy it might not have been so 'bad', but it could just have easily been a penalty, but no, a ban is in order...

    This was probably not as bad as the Bastareud tackle (apart from the lack of ball!) and I thought that tackle was fine...

    I'll copy and paste:

    "In my opinion, the whole point is to dissuade people from doing THIS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUlWZXR5NiM

    Not the tackle that basta..uh...strauss did."

  • 4:38 PM 27/05/2014

    not sure I agree, you can see his elbow raised well above his head so he is tipping the player. If he had simply lifted him and gone to ground it would have been a perfect dump tackle. Also the guy didn't go down on the flat of his back, he went down sideways on his shoulder and had to put his arm down to make sure he didn't hit the ground head first.

    You risk injury by playing rugby, there's no need to add unnecessary risks on top of everything

  • drogers93
    4:23 PM 27/05/2014

    the only issue i have with this is his timing, the ball has gone and he has carried on with the tackle. now i can see the argument that he may not be aware of that but i still think maybe he didnt have to finish the tackle quite as he did.
    However if he had the ball it would be in my mind a great tackle, as i said the ONLY issue is timing. At the very very very worst a penalty and a talking to for following through with the tackle to that extent after the ball is gone. If he only half dumped him then there wouldnt be any issue watsoever with this.

  • guy
    4:18 PM 27/05/2014

    Is this all the footage the committee had at it's disposal? There doesn't seem to be much in it to me but I guess the law is the law although the explanation of how they came to 3 weeks completely baffles me (low entry, upgrade, excellent record...wtf????)

Related Articles