Video Ana!isys. Tackles and clearings above shoulder.

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As the law says, "A player must not tackle (or try to tackle) an opponent above the line of the shoulders", and as it can be seen in the video, both Moody's (nº 6 on the video) and Matfield's (nº13) reversal of penalties were right calls. They were clearly above the shoulders so deserved penalties and they were dangerous.

4 more penalties should have been called against the boks:
- Lood's penalty (1)
- Pollard's  (7)
- Bismark's (10), though the try scored through the advantage nulifies it.
-Vermeulen's (14)

After so many dangerous offenses a yellow or at least a warning wouldn't have been in excess.





1. The first incident. Lood grabs McCaw from his neck, clearly above his shoulders. And it's dangerous because all the force Lood is applying on McCaw is on his neck.
The penalty agaist the AB should have been reversed.

2. Read hit with his forearm le Roux's head which is not illegal but makes the tackle look worst than it is. And then he grabs Le Roux's body through his shoulder but didn't tackle him above the shoulders.
Garcés  shouldn't have called a penalty against Read and the AB.

3.  Etzebeth grabs Retallick over his neck and head, very strictly applying the law it should have been a penalty but it was nothing of importance. I wouldn't call it a penalty.

4. O. Franks grabs Pollard's neck. As the last one, strictly applying the law it should have been a penalty but it was nothing of importance. Franks applies his force on Pollard's shoulder not on his neck.

5. McCaw over de Allende. Nothing in it, McCaw grabs Allende's  left shoulder very clearly with his right arm. Impossible for him to grab his neck.

6.  Moody grabs Vermeulen above his shoulders and puts the force on his neck. Dangerous and the right call, a clear penalty that reversed the one against the boks.

7. Pollard grabs Carter above his shoulder and puts the force on his neck. Also  dangerous.
The penalty against Kaino should have been reversed.

8. Owen Franks on Louw. Nothing on it. Franks is pushing first on Faumuina and then on Louw's chest while his arm drops from Faumuina to Louw's shoulder.

9. Kaino grabs Burger's shoulder and Carter strips the ball from him. Nothing wrong.

10. Bismark du Plessis tackles Savea above his shoulders. Clear penalty and very dangerous because another player was grabbing Savea's legs.

11. Impossible to see from that angle if Faumuina grabs Jannie above his shoulders but it seems that Faumuina only uses one arm, his right one, and that it's on Jannie's shoulder not above it.

12. Kaino on Louw. Also imposible to distinguish anything from that angle and at that distance.  The only thing that can be seen is that Kaino passes his arm over Louw's back but not if he grabs him or not, let alone if he grabs him above his shoulders or not.

13. The famous Matfield's penalty. Very clearly Matfield grabs McCaw above his shoulders. Penalty without any doubt. And it was very dangerous because Matfield puts his force on McCaw's neck to first raise him and then throw him to the field.

14. Vermeulen grabs Mealamu above his shoulders. Penalty. He also puts force on Mealamu's neck.

15. Nyakane on Savea. It cannot be seen properly but seems that there's nothing wrong, Nyakane stops Savea with an arm on his shoulder and tries to get the ball.

16. Whitelock on Vermeulen. Very similar to the last one and the same can be said, it cannot be seen properly but seems that there's nothing wrong, Whitelock stops Vermeulen with an arm on his shoulder.

 Thanks that proves my point. There were many such instances in the game. In the case of the Moody instance the call  came from Lacey, the linesman verified with Aboob in the box. It was obvious.
In the Matfield instance you will see that the ref is looking directly at the incident from 5 metres away and doesn't call it. Why? because it was normative, not obvious, incidental. Then Aboob decided to be the swing vote.

It was a very harsh call.

 I don't know what's your point but Matfield's was a very clear and dangerous penalty. Period.

The fact that the ref was looking at it and didn't call it doesn't change anything. This ref didn't call any of the tackles and clearings above the shoulders but when the TMO call him for doing so (Moody's and Matfield).
Lood's clearing was also very dangerous and he was at 1 meter distance looking at it. He just wasn't applying the law and World Rugby's recomendations for this cases. B ad referee.
But Matfield's reversal was the right call and nothing near harsh

 Having reviewed the full set of incidents I can only say your interpretation is one eyed. Reid is not a problem even though he hammers Willie's head with his shoulder before getting him in a brief headlock? Whitelock in the last instance is not a problem, even though his grip is exactly the one Matfield applied on Reid....and he obviously had to apply force because he impeded the players progress. Pure anti Bok bias.

The truth is given the shape of the human anatomy if two players come head on at upper body level there is almost bound to be contact around the neck. If we don't want that we shouldn't allow tackling above the waist.

This game had only two cases where the neck was used to really leverage the tackle the Pollard tackle on Carter and the Moody tackle on Vermeulen, which ironically wasn't picked up by Aboob, but by Lacey. The Bargie/Oz game had many more cases of neck contact from a casual viewing.
There was no player reaction to the Matfield tackle, no commentator intervention....no reaction from Garces who watched the incident closely. It was a harsh call.

Of course you think that Dave...that was about as dangerous at a twelve year old wresting match. Kids do that stuff all the time, but now it's the holy grail in rugby. I'll tell you what is dangerous.... players pounding into a fetcher with his neck down over the ball...twenty times as dangerous as a simple neck grip.
But returning to the incident. There is zero evidence Matfield puts force on the neck. He is clamped onto Reid's back....all the force was vertical. So ...the only way he could have put pressure on the neck is if he had his hands on the front of Reid's neck....which he didn't....if the pressure was on the Adams apple Reid would have made a fuss. 
The pressure was on the upper chest.

 @ mozart,

Read hit Le Roux with his forearm not with his shoulder and in the way of grabbing le Roux's body which he did . It's very clear in the slow motion and it's quite diferent.

Whitelock didn't do the same as Matfield. To begin with Matfield's is a clearing of a ruck. There's nothing similar to a ruck in Whitelock's incident.
Whitelock, as Nyakane does, stops (or tackles if you want) the player with the ball who's coming bented and stops him with his arm on the oponent shoulder. Not above it.
The incident is the same as Nyakane's not Matfield's.
Pure proBok and pro Matfield bias

 @mozart

"There is zero evidence Matfield puts force on the neck."

how can you say that?
the only McCaw's point Matfield is making contact with is his neck and head so these are the only points where he puts his force to first raise him and then to throw McCaw to the ground.
Very dangerous.

Imagine the physics....one player with his body flat on to of another opposing player's back. His arms over the player's shoulder and under the player's chest. Now the player comes up vertically which he clearly does on the tape.....you can see him coming up on his toes.

So how can that vertical force be applied....only to the front of the neck if the neck is the point the pressure is applied. That would have required quite a contortion of Matfield's arms and would surely have drawn a reaction. Far more likely most of the force came from the right arm which was clearly below the chest.
If we want to engage in this kind of analysis we could probably call a penalty every 30 seconds in rugby....so we should limit TMO intervention to the obvious. This was far from obvious. And it was far from unique....which makes it a harsh call.

Disagree it is as clear as daylight that Matfield made contact with Read's neck......no disputing that fact at all.......its not even marginal.......was it a hard dangerous hit.......no it was not......but that is beside the point......rules are rules......you are not allowed to make contact with a players neck......end of story. 

ABF, what s oftware do you use to do this?

 So if rules are rules what happened to the other 14 incidents on the tape which were not called. Selective application of laws at best.....bias at a crucial point of the game at worst.

 So the guys have to play the game like a bunch of lawyers. As I said you could probably call 180 penalties in a game of rugby.....this is twaddle from a bent source. If this is rugby the game is now far from it's roots of freedom and flouting the rules.
Soccer now  looks so much more natural and free flowing. 11 vs 11 guys and almost no ref interference .We are losing the plot.

  @JW,
I use Premiere from Adobe but what I made is very simple and could be made with any of the simplest softwares like Wndows Video Maker or any similar.


@mozart,
under the current rules what Matfield did was a clear penalty, it was dangerous and the WR said from the beginning that this kind of clearings were going to be especially prosecuted and gave instruccions to the refs to do so.
yeah, there were other 4 incidents were the boks should have been also penalized but this doesn't change the issue, the reversal of the penalty was the right call.

Another diferent question is the convenience of changing the rules, or as in this case the applying of the rules, before a WC.
IMO it's completely ilogical to do it just before the WC. This rule about tackling or clearing above the shoulders was there for a long time but in the case of the clearings it wasn't been applied so the players were used to grab from the neck for clearings.
It's true that still it's a quite common thing in a game. And one change of this caliber should have been made a lot more in advance, at least one year or one season before to give time to the players to adapt to the change.
A WC is something too important for being making experiments or changes.
And the result in this case have been the confusion. The players still doing the offenses coz they are used to, not all the refs applying it in the same way (refs also need a time to adapt to the change), usually being called by the TMOs but not in all the cases, etc.

 ABF: thanks I may try Adobe or Microsoft movie maker, I also hear that Magicx is very good.

 @JW,
it depends on what do you want to do. If it's a simple thing like cut and paste diferent movies, any of those "..... movie maker" is enough and they are easy to use. I cannot help you any more coz I don't know them and don't know the diferences btwin them.
I'm used to Premiere, Final Cut, Liquid or this kind of software.

In my view it was about as dangerous as eating a marshmallow. But I think your follow up point is spot on.  

It was not dangerous but it infringed the laws of the game. But that is beside the point. The issue is why was Vic so stupid?

Thanks Moz for explaining the matter so carefully and convincingly. It is clear that A Yob from Oz shafted us. This is completely in accordance with the  Get the Jarpy Agenda which Oz and Nz are party to and which we see in action week by week.
Our shame is that Craig Joubert appears to be in question regarding his handing a win to OZ. We all remember how he shafted France the last time round!! (By the way note how we hammwered the Scots. Oh but you say it wasnt their best side. Well note this then down under apologists the Boks hammered the wee Samoans. Scots with their best side squeaked home against the said Samoans. There can be little doubt we would have buried oz if we had met in a final.)
Hence as I have so cogently argued neither nz nor Oz deserve to be in the final. An incovenient truth which will have poor rooitwit frothing at the mouth and throwing his toys out the kott! He will be appealing to the kbbs for assistance on the matter and  wailing on about how nasty Beeno is to be telling truths like this. We, according to poor rooitwit, should all be genuflecting and congratulating these RWC burgalars. Whehehehehe

 You've got very little to "wehehe" about Hasbeeno. Good luck in the Special Plate Final. Are they bothering to televise that game?...

 There was a guy I remember in the fourth form at Hamilton Boys. He possibly talked more shit than this Hasbeeno character, but I don't think I've met anyone since.

 Mooo, Beenz has taken it upon himself to expose bent refs and devious NZ tactics. ..stressful and thankless task indeed, but he soldiers on....very consistent our Beeno is....haven't faltered even once!