DSPN - Devlin Sports Podcast Network
Jeff The Ref: Should Tip Tacklers in Rugby be Sin Binned?
14 Apr 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
We want guys to be walking off and remembering what they achieved, not drooling in the corner.
When you get a penalty count so heavily against one team, what is that telling you? Are they just not gelling with the referee? Are they not getting with what the way that he's reffing the game?
I do think that there is a reflection that is taking place in the moment. I think that that one is, you just see accidents occur. Not everything needs to be a penalty. Not everything needs to be punished.
Welcome to the DSPN.
John Walker wins the 1500 metres gold medal at the Olympic Games.
We all have won by 29 points tonight. The Devlin Sports Podcast Network. It's Geoff the Ref time. Geoff the Ref, CEO of Webwonks. G'day. You want sales? I do. You want money? I do. You want leads for your business? Oh, I do, baby. You go to him. You go to Webonks. They sort all that out for you. Doctors for your Google data.
Saturday of Anzac weekend, Super Run in Christchurch, 2.30, the Loft Bar in Christchurch. A couple of beers.
Yeah, and a few more.
A couple of beers. Come along. Happy to... Buy you a couple of beers. Shout you a couple of beers for being part of the DSPN. So if you can make it down there, we're going to walk to the ground after that and do the fan trial and everything. Me and Lachlan are there for the whole weekend, live before the games, after the games, all of that kind of stuff.
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Chapter 2: What corrections were made regarding the previous week's discussion?
Angus Gardner, as you can hear him, says no problem. right so compare the two what is the rule and did Ben O'Keefe get this wrong because you don't see these kind of tackles very often in games and you don't see them because I thought they were outlawed
Well, I think when he says that he's going to rap, you can see that the man is rapping. There's no issue with that. The issue is that the player arrives on his back, he shirks him off and lifts his shoulder. And as far as I'm concerned, he's got no knowledge of where he's going to land, be it on his back, his neck, his head. So I looked at it, law nine, foul play 18, which is dangerous play.
A player must not lift an opponent off the ground and drop or drive that player so that the head and or upper body make contact with the ground. Well, in my eyes, I think because we look at the second piece of vision, which is maybe that's a bit more accidental, and I see very similar taken above the horizontal and then not brought back down to ground safely.
Now, you do see those sorts of tackles often in games, and I think that they are not certainly at community level.
Well, that'll be the first in Super Rugby this season I've seen a tackle like that.
Yeah, well, obviously it's poor form, but I think what makes it worse is that he does look like he's shaking it off, whereas in the Reds game it's sort of more... If not accidental, you can see why that happened in the moment. But I think that, again, looking at what is the purpose of these laws, foul play, dangerous play is designed to protect the man's head.
Similarly, where you bring the tackle down so that it's below the sternum, it's designed to protect the man's head. So we're going to look at some collision tackles later, which are yellow cards, and then we're going to look at these, which are not even a penalty.
So I think sometimes we get caught in the law and we say, well, we can apply the law as the law is written without going and stepping back and going. But why is the law that way? Because the law is there in these instances for safety reasons. It's not there.
Did Ben get that wrong in your opinion on that one?
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of tip tackles in rugby?
Not everything needs to be punished.
And that one you think could have actually just been, oops, thank God neither of you got injured here.
It's more of an HIA type scenario. It's like a both men okay, play through it. I mean, especially when we look at the other things, tip tackles or whatever are played through.
Yeah, OK, well, there's two. There's two where he rules, Ben O'Keefe rules twice, and both times we're disagreeing. He's the referee, he called it. And also, for everyone who sat through that game, who paid to sit through, and I'm talking about those who went, congratulations to you.
For those of us who had the benefit of remote control in our hands, it was a very easy game to watch in about 10 minutes, that game.
Yeah, absolutely.
Let's go to the Canes versus the Blues. And old Mr. Finicky here... Pointed this one out. 26 minutes. Zion Sullivan, left foot kick into touch. His toe is on the 22. Now, again, it didn't matter in the end because the scoreline blew out. It was 42-14.
But if this was a close game, and that would be the difference between a line-out in the Hurricanes' half or a line-out on the Blues' 22, what exactly is the rule? Now, I'm going to ask you this because... Your interpretation of it and your actual rule is different from what Lachlan Googled this before we went. And Google AI told us that, oh, no, the foot has to be behind the line.
When you freeze frame that, as you can see, the toe is on the line. Now, if the toe is on the line, you're out. So rugby, it should just be one blanket rule, shouldn't it? Ball hits line is tried. Toe on line is, but apparently that's because he's not fully over the line. I'm being finicky here, but that's actually inside the 22. Kick is perfectly okay.
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Chapter 4: How do referees interpret dangerous play in rugby?
Yeah the side entry was the only problem I had no issue with him being he was bound as a part of the mall the mall hadn't finished at that point so if the defenders bleed off that's on them that it was fine but he joined illegally and so but the game what you've got to look at is what are the trends in the game preceding that. Is the referee really going to get involved in every moment?
Like you said, then all of a sudden every maul is going to be adjudicated around. But if a maul's in open play, it doesn't really matter. What we look at is the mauls that result in tries.
I go right back to the Wales versus Scotland game where Scotland got out of jail against Wales, where one that looked illegal as well. It seems to me it's an area of the game where no one is policing. Everyone's looking the other way.
No, I didn't see. The first three minutes of the Highlanders game, I did see the halfback put his hands very deep into the scrum to get the ball out, and it was reminiscent of the ruck situation. I was like, has the hooker even hooked the ball yet? Because he was deep in there. I was like, okay, all right. So there's a lot of liberties being taken.
I mean, it's innovation in the game, and it's up to the lawmakers to come in there and make changes to it. The referees can only referee what they're seeing in front of them.
Final one, and this I think they did get it wrong. 52 minutes, Fihi's yellow card. You look at this and watch it on real time, watch it in slow-mo. This to me is very obvious. It's an easy decision. It has to be a yellow. I don't see how that is not upgraded to a red. That is no arms. That's a shoulder to the face. That's by definition a red card. It has to be, isn't it?
Yeah, well, I mean, like it was very poor form. He had, you know, even if we were to apply the below the shoulders, he didn't look like he was well up. And so, you know, it depends on.
Well, we saw one. We've been through them in various weeks where we've had guys say, no, no, no, your body. But look, we saw Harry Wilson last week and he was called out for bad body position, right? Because he was upright going into that. I don't see what the difference is here.
No, and I think, again, you've got to look at what they're trying to achieve week to week. I think that there are moments in a game or in a season where you can stamp a mark and you can say, we want this behaviour stopped. And the way that you do that is by elevating and escalating the penalty or the sanction that's being applied.
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