Former Ireland captain Brian O’Driscoll believes red cards such as the one given to Garry Ringrose in last Saturday’s Six Nations match against Wales will be more common in the game due to changes to the laws in respect to dangerous play.
“Almost all players across the board are going to pick up a red card during their career, whereas in my career they were hard to come by,” said O’Driscoll, speaking as a Guinness ambassador at the launch of Field of Vision, a new sensory experience for visually impaired fans at this year’s Six Nations.
“It’s much easier to pick one up now. He [Ringrose] has a great propensity to read plays. It’s his first red card at 30-years-of age, he got one wrong and in the modern age lots of players are going to get one wrong. Twenty-minute red card, does it discourage you from going into those hits? Probably not.”
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“I wasn’t a fan of it [the 20-minute red card), but I’m coming around to it and that’s not just because of what happened with Garry. Because if you mistime something, it’s hundredths of a second and a reaction ... when you accelerate hard, you accelerate in your fastest position which is upright, not in a crouch position. And then sometimes your acceleration gets you there too quickly to make that decision.”
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O’Driscoll, who played the same position as Ringrose throughout his long career, asked rhetorically what kind of player will Ringrose become after the experience and will it have an effect on the way he plays the game in the future? His signature tackles are the hard-up hits in the outside channels, which have helped him become an outstanding outside centre with Leinster and Ireland.
“What comes out the other side, does he pull it back a fraction?” asked O’Driscoll. “When you think about the big concussion he got in Scotland a few years ago, it was significant and concerning but it hasn’t short-changed him on getting after those hits. It’s just his way.
“It’s so hard, hundredths or thousandths of a second to make a decision. Personally I think it was just a red card, not an ‘oh my God, red’, but just about. It will be interesting to see what happens at his hearing, but he’s gotten so many right, that to get one wrong doesn’t mean you go back and reinvent yourself.
“Maybe he’ll pull it back for a few games and build confidence, get the quality back in again and then go back to rebuilding that part of your game again.”
