Loose Pass: Champions Cup head shots, cards, fan behaviour and a moment’s reflection

In a week where one of the game’s more prominent headlines was the estimate of 400 premature deaths of former players (in both codes), it was perhaps inevitable that observers, officials and many others would be looking at head contact incidents, and their consequences, this weekend.

The subject was thrust further into the spotlight by the vexing three-match ban handed down to Leicester’s Guy Porter, who, although it can plausibly be argued he was lax in his technique, is clearly paying the price for rugby’s increased sensitivity. Not paying the price, of course, and further clouding the matter, was Leinster’s Jamison Gibson-Park, who escaped a ban because… no, we can’t work it out either, not if Porter’s act was red card-worthy.

Then there’s the bans themselves. If Porter gets six weeks as his entry point for the ban, was Tolu Latu’s appalling challenge on Baptiste Chouzenoux only twice as bad? How can Porter’s challenge be even mentioned in the same breath as Axel Muller’s wanton charge on Ben Harris?

Those were last week’s indiscretions and inconsistencies, but this weekend simply saw it get worse. How, for example, was Porter’s act any worse, in terms of recklessness and lax technique than Ulster wing Ethan McIlroy’s take-out of Thomas Ramos in the air? Or Rob du Preez’s cover tackle on Luke Morahan – and that had come shortly after Arron Reed had been sent off. And if Nick Schonert had really made contact with the head, shouldn’t he have seen red too? Even when Reed got his marching orders, his co-tackler, who also made head contact with the upper arm, was not in a good technical position at all, yet nothing happened? Not even yellow? The same goes, with bells on, for Ulster’s Rob Herring, who for all the world