England captain Owen Farrell has been handed a remarkable reprieve and is free to play at the World Cup after his red card for a dangerous tackle against Wales was overturned.
This will be remembered as quite the moment in the legal art of finding mitigation for an act that seems, even in slow motion, inexcusable. But it could yet go down as a bleak day for rugby. The sport is confronting a crisis over brain injuries so profound that Steve Thompson, the 45-year-old former England hooker who struggles to remember his own children’s names due to early onset dementia, wishes he had never played.
Pleading mitigation in such an incident is a complex business. The most logical option is to seek clemency on the basis of it being a one-off, of the culprit committing an uncharacteristic error in judgment.
‘It is at this point that you wonder if the sport is guilty not just of a baffling decision but of an unforgivable dereliction of duty.’His flooring of Basham was not the first time that Farrell’s bludgeoning technique had incurred a fittingly severe punishment. It was not even the first time this year.
No wonder the Welsh camp are apoplectic. Basham, the victim in all this, is unlikely, after his failed head injury assessment, to start Saturday’s match against South Africa, thus limiting his World Cup opportunities. Farrell, the perpetrator, has missed a mere 17 minutes of rugby. It is at this point that you wonder if the sport is guilty not just of a baffling decision but of an unforgivable dereliction of duty.
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