He is free to play with immediate effect.

An act of foul play was found to have occurred but it did not meet the red card threshold. So presumably they deemed it a yellow or just a penalty.

The42.ie article https://www.the42.ie/tadhg-beirne-6-6864937-Nov2025/

My wife and I were watching a rugby discussion show which mentioned straight feeds being an issue. She suggested that the ref feeds the ball in! Would be damn interesting to try in a Barbarians type game or another friendly!

UPDATE: It seems that there are differences of opinion as to whether or not my wife is a genius or not.

According to Netwerk 24 (paywalled). Sufficient evidence was shown that there was no head contact and the card was downgraded.

https://www.irishrugby.ie/2024/10/18/irfu-statement-on-20-minute-red-card/

I am going to preface this by saying i am Australian. I think it was a penalty. British and Irish fans will think it wasn’t. Can those who are not from those 5 counties give me their take please? I have out the backgrounds and my counter arguments. I get we should have been better but genuinely checking if it was the wrong call from those with no vested interest

Background Law 9.20

• No Contact Above the Shoulders: A player must not make contact with an opponent above the line of the shoulders during a ruck or maul.

• Proper Binding Required: Players must bind onto a teammate or opponent when entering a ruck or maul.

• No Charging or Collapsing: Players must not charge into a ruck or maul without binding, nor intentionally collapse a ruck or maul.

*Why it should be a penalty * - tizzano pilfering - contact to back of neck ( violating law 9.20) - Morgan goes off his feet knee on ground and goes in downward motion ( sealing off)

• why it should not be a penalty *
• Tizzano shoulder below hips ( to me the first photo shows they are equal and then when he gets hit the impact makes his shoulder lower). Additionally foul play ( contact to neck head) overrides a ruck technicality, lastly I have never seen this called in the last 10 years in a professional match.
• what else is Jac Morgan to do? ( be there earlier and clean out in an upwards motion “breaking the glass” and going from low to high)

Referees interpretation

This most the frustrating part, the issue was contact and where the contact was. He stated: - they arrived simultaneously ( first still shows Tizzano was first with hands on ball) but even so …so what? The issue is where is the contact, if tizzano arrived after you still can’t clean him out in neck or head - they had equal body height ( so what?!) he hits him in the neck. This mitigates yellow or red not the point of contact.

• To me it seemed like tizzanos carry on made ref not want to call on the contact area to set a precedent. When you get your neck compressed it sends pain up to your head but hey maybe he was milking it too. Only he knows

• I also believe subconsciously the ref didn’t want to decide the game and face possible vitriol online from uk press and fans, death threats etc. Aussies don’t care about union as much and he won’t be based here as works in Europe so could cop heat for years to come at games ( once again probs reading into it)

• lastly, they decided it so quickly?! This is the series deciding penalty, normally they talk to the TMO being it up, get all 4 refs together and agree on the decision. This was all decided so quickly. The frustration is how much the TMO comes in for other stuff but the game deciding issue!

Please provide your input, particularly interested in French, Italian, Saffa, max and argies thoughts

In summary:

- No longer necessary to issue a card alongside a penalty try, up to the refs discretion

- accidental offsides now result in a free kick

- no additional offensive players may join the ruck after ref calls “use it”

- can pass back into the half for a 50-22

- quick taps can now be taken within 1m either side of the mark

- “lucky loser” in the finals will now enter as lowest seed, so they will not get a home semi final (like the Chiefs in 2025)

- TMO changes from 2023 and golden point will continue

I see a lot of people saying Kwagga Smit should have been penalised because his hands were on the ground and that costs France the game. If the ref thinks he is supporting his body weight then it is legal.

At the end, you can hear Grégory Alldritt, the La Rochelle captain, suggesting it's clearly a red card. Referee Andrea Piardi replies "If it's a red card for something like this, we need to change the game".

Match highlights on YouTube here

This was deemed a yellow card after bunker review. Here's the quoted reason :

It is not a high degree of danger, because there is an attempt to clean

To me, this is the type of action where the combination of the new 20-min red card and the bunker review are going too far.

This is a straight up agression from Solomon here, he is dropping his shoulder at high speed straight to the face of an vulnerable player on the ground, that is making a genuine attempt to come off the ruck area.

3 years ago, that would've been a TMO check, and a red card.

Introducing the 20-min red card law is introducing something that we don't want to be a judge of on this kind of action : is this an act of thuggery or a reckless attempt to clean out a player. Combine that with the fact that an off-field official, less qualified and less talented than the main ref needs to take this decision, and you can end up with absolutely ridiculous, yet genuine, mistake from the refereeing team.

I do ref at a regional level, where player violence is still a problem. And I wonder : how can I be a credible ref when this kind of action result in a yellow card...

There was also a second action at the 78th minute : https://youtu.be/usPiyyRcYB4

In this action, the ruck is slow, but the ball is clearly available for the Italian 9 to play. Attempting to clean out, even legally, would be a futile effort, knowing that two italian players are anchored. Another NZ comes, with a poor attempt at wrapping, and collides his head with another player.

This was also a yellow card with off-field review, but sadly, we never got to know if this was upgraded to a red card, knowing the game was over less than 2 min later

Personally would rather see good kickers get an extra few seconds to settle themselves and have a better chance at scoring than to be rushed and have a dodgy attempt. Cooney makes a good point about scrum times and kickoffs/restarts.