It's not often that we see red cards dished out these days. If we do see them it's normally for punches or blatant dirty play which normally involves some kind of thugery on the field.
On Friday night Bulls fullback Zane Kirchner received this red card for an off the ball spear tackle, which has resulted in him having been suspended for two weeks.
Bakkies Botha was yellow carded at the same time for an alleged head butt, which he's since been found not guilty of committing.
My original feeling was that the red for Kirchner was a bit harsh. However, the
assistant referee
, as they call them these days, was Mark Lawrence and he loves dishing out the discipline. The discussion between ref and Lawrence amounted to them both agreeing that it was
extreme
, a spear, and off the ball.
Who knows what Kirchner was thinking when making the tackle, and despite Dusty Noble landing safely on a pile of other players, it's only a matter of time before someone gets seriously injured by a tackle of this nature.
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