The second-worst thing about the latest assault of Tom Lynagh is that we’ll never know the truth.
Here’s a young player, supremely talented but smaller in stature than most carrying the weight of a name on his shoulders.
Despite his brother choosing to do the opposite, he rejected England and Italy ostensibly to pursue his Wallaby dream through Super Rugby where his game is arguably best suited.
Yet, Super Rugby is offering no protection to him, no justice. The officials appear entirely unaccountable.
Almost as unaccountable as the TV producers across the ditch who seem to think player welfare is a joke. That the use of foul play replays are a ‘play thing’, the prerogative of hometown advantage.
If there is footage out there showing that the hit on Lynagh by Veveni Lasaqa in the 21st minute of the Highlanders game last week was before the whistle, that the tackler did not enter upright and his head did not impact Lynagh’s cheek or eye area, I haven’t seen it. Nobody has seen it to the best of my knowledge.
What I did see was a single angle shown on television and widely shared on social media where Lynagh looks bloody lucky to have avoided a serious facial injury. He gets up blinking and pointing to the area of his eye socket immediately.
Astonishingly, the referee stops the game before the TMO states “apologies, don’t check it, it’s fine it’s on the shoulder.” The commentators note “they’ve changed their mind” all within 17 seconds of the incident.
How could more than one angle of the incident have been found and watched by the TMO more than once within 17 seconds?
Regardless of the pretty obvious head contact, how could a borderline late tackle, where no attempt was made to wrap with the arms, not even result in a penalty?
It is a joke. Laughable if it wasn’t so serious.
In a time when games are regularly stopped for minutes at a time, where it is indeed routine to show multiple angles of an incident, multiple times, the dialogue here between officials as well as the TV coverage raises very serious questions.
(Photo by Joe Allison/Getty Images)
If that isn’t enough, what about adding a little more context.
Another Kiwi No.7, Sam Cane was sent from the field, never to return in the last World Cup final for a very similar incident.
Les Kiss commented last year specifically referencing foul play directed at Lynagh that “if that’s becoming a trend, we’ve got to stamp on it straight away, what you permit, you promote.”
And that is the ‘first worst thing’ about all of this.
Super Rugby is permitting the illegal targeting of a skill position player at a time when we want kids of all sizes to take up a safe game, when World Rugby tells us that all the stoppages for and replays of even the most innocuous incidents are core to its ethos.
It appears that until Lynagh suffers from repeated concussions or severe facial injuries, it’s all just one big joke.
