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.
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.
