"But the notion that you can avoid head contact in rugby is absurd"
I actually fully agree with this, but what Barret did in particular looked very intentional and malicious to me, and it's not his first offense in this specific regard either ...
I have also never seen Marx complain about anything like this before, so he must have also deemed it to have been malicious or intentional ....
Anything to get Marx out of the game, for even a short period of time, would have been a blessing for the All Blacks, such is his pres ence on the field.
"He should get 6 months suspension for that foul play."
I couldn't believe it when they said that after review, it would not get escalated to a Red, but that it was only a Red because it was his 2nd yellow..... so if he did not have that 1st yellow, he would have got away with 10 minutes in the sin bin..... yet just imagine one of the SA players doing that.
If Barret's shoulder had fully connected to Marx's head / neck area, without him having to brace for the impact because he wasn't expecting it, that could have been a very serious injury.... Barret is not a small guy.