So Franco Mostert has had his red card downgraded to a yellow. To my mind it shouldn’t have been a yellow, but then World Rugby probably felt they needed to save face. After all, it is the second time in the space of a few weeks that a red card has been rescinded. The one shown to Ireland forward Tadgh Beirne in the game against the All Blacks in Chicago was also overturned.

At least in the Beirne instance it was a 20 minute red card. It didn’t have a big impact on the game, and Ireland were actually leading through the period he was off the field. Both the Lood de Jager permanent red against France, which maybe at a push should have been a 20 minute red but not a permanent one, and the Mostert card, which was the result of sheer incompetence on the part of the match officials, could have had a big impact on the result were it not for the resilience and brilliance of the Boks.

So the question now is what happens to referee James Doleman and the TMO who together conspired in Turin to come up with a decision that was just patently wrong, and was to everyone but themselves when the replay was shown? Schalk Burger summed it up perfectly in describing it as a work of fiction.

The players who get carded effectively get hung out to dry. There is the shame of the walk to the sidelines after a card, be it red or yellow, and then when the red carded player fails to convince the disciplinary committee that it should be overturned, his sanction is made public. De Jager got four weeks last week and we all got to know about it.

I normally like to be protective of referees as they do a difficult job and as I wrote in this column last week, it is often the law that is the ass. But this time the law wasn’t the ass. It was just incompetence, and the rugby watching public, or consumers of professional rugby to put it another way, should surely be informed on how the officials managed to spot head contact when there clearly wasn’t anything of the sort.

And how they and the refereeing team in Paris were so convinced about the malice behind the respective tackles that they deemed the bunker shouldn’t be brought in to adjudicate, which in both cases was an easy and sensible thing to do.

COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY IN CHICAGO

Come to think of it, while we would assume that common sense would prevail, there is no guarantee that the bunker would have reached the right decision either. For the Beirne incident in the Chicago game did go to the bunker. And the red that was upgraded by the bunker was later rescinded.

So in that instance there was a lot of collective responsibility for what was ultimately deemed an error. And which so many people knew was an error at the time, including the All Black player that Beirne tackled, Beauden Barrett, who afterwards said he would help the Irish player overturn the card if he could.

How did so many people in Chicago, meaning those officiating on the field, the TMO and the people in the bunker, get it wrong? And what sanction do they cop for making such a mistake?

Surely the public should be informed, just as surely the referees and TMOs should go in front of the media after games, just like coaches and captains do, to explain their decisions. It used to happen in the Currie Cup in South Africa early in my rugby writing career, meaning the early 1990s, but that was discontinued.

AT LEAST WE DON’T HAVE TO DISCUSS THE C WORD

C is for conspiracy. There was much conspiracy theory after the Turin game from not just South African fans, but also to some extent from people who weren’t Bok supporters. And it was understandable - there were permanent red cards given that could easily have been referred to the bunker, and they were both to Springbok players.

Everyone appeared to expect the Mostert red to be rescinded. I even stated it that way in the headline to my scene setter to the Bok week in Dublin - I couched it as the Boks waiting for the card to be rescinded. There was no ‘if’.

And it is a good thing it was, for while I don’t believe sensible people should buy into conspiracy theories, it would have been hard to avoid it if the Mostert card had stood. As it was, it was hard to argue against those who were uncomfortable that the DC that heard the De Jager case the previous week were apparently all Irish.

The Boks clearly feel there may be a hint of the C word somewhere and full marks to Rassie for putting his assistant coach Mzwandile Stick, rather than himself, up to make the points that needed to be made at a press conference early in the week. ‘Stokke’, as he is known, doesn’t have a record like Rassie does when it comes to being banned for talking out.

But there is also something to note about the current Boks when they do make a public statement on a refereeing performance or judicial decision - they have in their management ranks one of the world’s best referees from the last few World Cup cycles in Jaco Peyper. Peyper knows his oats, he obviously knows the law inside out. The Boks would not be posturing publicly if Jaco told them they didn’t have a leg to stand on.

THE GOVERNING BODY SEEMS OUT OF TOUCH WITH THE SPORT

Not that there was really any debate over the Mostert card. Just about every pundit who has either coached or played at international level was in agreement that there should have been no card, and while not everyone was in such accord over De Jager the week before, Lood did get a lot of support from former All Blacks like Jeff Wilson, Stephen Donald and Mils Muliaina on The Breakdown.

And even though Beirne was an Ireland player playing against New Zealand they were pretty unanimous that shouldn’t have been a card either. So who is running World Rugby, and why does the organisation seem so out of step with the sport?

When Mostert was sent off last weekend I immediately received a text message from a top former administrator: “Enough is enough”. And then “This is a joke”. My response to the last one was that jokes are supposed to be funny and what World Rugby is doing to the sport is not funny.

And seeing we mentioned the word conspiracy earlier, let’s admit too that it isn’t just South Africa that is unhappy about the cards that are being dished out in every game. Eddie Jones, now coaching Japan, had some choice things to say about it after the card-ridden game between his team and Wales in Cardiff.

Beirne is not a South African, and in response to those who warn that if this continues then a massive game, like a World Cup final, could one day be ruined by an arbitrary red card, you need to be reminded that it has already happened. The red card that became the overriding narrative of the last World Cup final, the one to All Black skipper Sam Cane, was probably correct within the letter of the law as it was applied but there was no intentional illegality on the Kiwi’s part. And to the layman it would have been confusing that Bok skipper Siya Kolisi wasn’t then red carded for what to many would have looked like exactly the same thing. It was a matter of a few centimetres difference in the height of the tackle.

So it has already happened, is continuing to happen, and will happen again. Consumers of professional rugby are confused, not only over the inconsistencies that are apparent and to which my colleague Brenden Nel referred to in his Talking Point on Tuesday, but over how the law is applied generally. There was a time when a clear red was a clear red, it was clear and obvious, now it does seem to be arbitrary and a lottery and so many cards are the product of unavoidable accidents. The Beirne card was definitely one of those.

Rugby can’t afford to have people switching off to the sport because they are confused or frustrated, but that is what will happen if this continues. Imagine if you are one of those who pays a fortune to go to a big game far away and it gets ruined by an early red card for what might effectively be a clash of heads and how you would feel about that.

THERE WILL ALWAYS BE RISK IN RUGBY

So what’s the real problem here and what does World Rugby need to rethink? Medical people and sports scientists will no doubt get incensed at this, but it is so obviously the problem that it can’t be ignored - there is hysteria and paranoia in the governing body because they were seen to be slow in reacting to the legal actions being brought against them by people who were oblivious to the fact they were playing a dangerous sport. One where head injuries could happen.

Yes, everything possible needs to be done to ensure the safety of the players. But it is impossible to remove danger from the sport without turning it into touch rugby. Danger may even be part of its appeal. And for the people who sign up to play it would know that, just like a UFC fighter or for that matter a mountain biker does.

Do you want to know where I have seen the most blood and the most scars recently? I have a good mate Russell who every weekend goes cycling, both off road and on tar, and almost every second weekend he falls off his bike. Some of his wounds are hideous. But every weekend he gets back on his bike. He makes the choice to do it. He clearly can live with the scars he accrues in the process. And as far as I know he has never subjected himself to an HIA test. Apart from the one that is implicit when I ask him if he is still of sound mind.

Sorry, if there is any rugby player who takes up the sport who is not aware of the potential dangers, and the possibility that concussion could happen if he or she doesn’t carefully monitor it, then they are suffering from something called stupidity.

WHAT YOU DO MAKES YOU WHAT OR WHO YOU ARE

The words of the late doyen of South African cricket commentators on radio, Charles Fortune, when commentating on a night game many years ago keep coming into my mind. It was the start of an innings in a game former Australian skipper Kim Hughes, then captaining Natal, was involved in.

There were fireworks going off, Hughes was the fielding captain, and he was clearly showing his displeasure with his body movements at the fact play was being delayed. Fortune said: “Mister Hughes looks upset but Mister Hughes maybe should take a few seconds to think about what it is that makes Mister Hughes who he is.”

Spot on. And I think the same things when I see the big names who after their careers are over attack the sport that effectively made them who they are. We wouldn’t have heard of them if they didn’t play rugby. In many cases they made a lot of money out of the sport. And if the sport was a more sanitised version of what it was when they played, they might not have been as good at it.

I’m not saying there shouldn’t be safety measures put in place, but the ones around the tackle are imperfect and undermine the sport. People risk skin cancer every time they go outside into the African sun, my mate Russell knows the risks of getting on a cycle, rugby players must surely know the risks too. In fact it was one of the reasons I preferred playing cricket when I was young - I knew the hard ball could hurt me, but that’s why I was mainly a bowler, batting at No 11 and often prevailed on the captain, when that wasn’t me, to declare when our team’s ninth wicket fell.

I saw more blood and big head contact in one of Drickus’ fights last year than you get in several rugby games. I’m assuming he knows what he does is dangerous.

THERE WAS ALSO SOME RUGBY

Okay, so enough about that, for there was also some great rugby this past weekend, and if it weren’t for the red card, the Turin game between the Boks and Italy would have been remembered as a cracker.

The game of the weekend, and the statement of the weekend, was the one at Twickenham, where England finally got it right against the All Blacks after several close losses to that team. It was a good win, but some of the English overreaction has been so predictable and reminded me of something I experienced in a Tokyo lift on the day the Boks played Wales in the 2019 RWC semifinal.

England had thrashed the Kiwis 20-6 in their semifinal the day before, and there was a throng of England supporters in the lift. They were all understandably cock-a-hoop, but as a South African who firmly believed that the Boks had a great chance of beating England if they made it to the final, some of what was said raised my eyebrows.

“So are you going to the final next week, it should be a great occasion?”

“Nah, yesterday was the final. Whoever we play next week we will beat them. The World Cup is ours.”

Hah, it didn’t turn out that way. I happen to rate the current England team, and in particular the generational talents like Henry Pollock and Noah Caluori, the 19-year-old Saracens winger currently playing for England A, who will give them X-factor in the next World Cup cycle.

But comparing where this England team are now to where England were at the same stage of the cycle building up to their 2003 RWC win is not comparing apples to apples. The current England team has won 10 in a row, but were any of those wins in South Africa or New Zealand? Did the Springboks, the world’s No 1 team, feature in any game they won? Have they beaten France away like South Africa have?

The England squad that won the 2003 World Cup came to South Africa to play Nick Mallett’s Boks in a two game series in 2000. They lost the closely fought first game and then were convincing winners in Bloemfontein the following week, and that was the day I decided they would win the next World Cup.

But the next World Cup was at that stage three years away, not just two, and that England team was far more experienced and further down the development road than the current England team is. We will know more about their claim to be champions in waiting when they come to South Africa next year for their Nations Cup game. But I have a hunch the narrative might have changed because they will be playing France and Ireland in the Six Nations between now and then and we know how quickly the mood can turn against them when they lose.

NOT SURE ABOUT THE OPPOSITION

Ireland and England both scored good wins, but how good are Australia and New Zealand right now? The Aussies have slipped alarmingly since their high point in Johannesburg in August and it hasn’t surprised me. I never rated the Wallabies before the Lions series or before the Johannesburg game, where they did surprise me, but they have gone back now to where they belong. Around 7th or 8th in the world.

They don’t have the resources of some other nations, which may be why they look out on their feet. Remembering of course that they started their international season with the big series against the Lions. They finish their tour against France this coming weekend and they should end with four defeats in four starts.

Twickenham was the wakeup call that was always going to happen for a New Zealand team that just doesn’t have the same world class look and aura to it than All Black teams of old. England are second in the world to the Boks when it comes to putting teams away in the last quarter, and when New Zealand weren’t leading, the end result was inevitable.

But in both instances, Dublin and London, there was reason to feel the celebrations should have been a trifle more tempered. What the win over a flat Wallabies team will do is boost Ireland confidence levels. The win over the All Blacks though might help Argentina, who looked like they were saving for Twickenham when they went with a changed up selection against Scotland.