TALKING POINT: How Willemse's can is a warning to Leinster's Lions

It had to happen. A day after DHL Stormers coach John Dobson justified leaving out some key players from his selection for the final Vodacom URC clash with Cardiff by saying there were certain players that needed protecting, he may have lost one of those he didn’t protect.

Damian Willemse wasn’t injured but he was red carded for one of those unfortunate tackle height infringements that frankly is a blight on the modern game. Referring to the sanction, and not the tackles, which sometimes are just unavoidable.

Hanyani Shimange and Schalk Burger, speaking in the Supersport studio before last Saturday afternoon’s round of URC matches, both said they understood the need to make the sport safer, but said that the suspension that a player cops for a red card like that is problematic. I am with them.

There is often an element of grey area in those incidents, and a lot grey area in the recent tackle that saw Stormers tighthead Neethling Fouche have to go tackle school and forced him to miss three games due to his suspension.

Fortunately for the Stormers it wasn’t costly as they won all three games with bonus points, but had they been slated to play a particularly strong scrumming team like the Vodacom Bulls, for instance, it could have been costly.

The argument of the ex-Springbok Supersport duo would be that Fouche’s red card, which Burger said he doubted at the time even merited a penalty, and again I am with him, arguably cost the Stormers what was ultimately a tight game against Ulster at the Kingspan Stadium. Why did it require further sanction?

There might not have been quite as much grey area in the case of Willemse, but I was pleased when I got home after the Stormers/Cardiff game to hear when watching the game again on replay that Shimange, in his role of commentator, appeared to agree with what I thought when it happened. 

That Willemse was in a passive position. He might have been taking evasive action with a player running into him.

SANCTION OFTEN DEPENDS ON WHO SITS ON THE DC

Many would disagree with me and with Shimange, who did appear to have changed his mind a bit after he’d flown to Durban to sit in the Randburg studio, but that’s the problem.

Many of those incidents can be viewed subjectively and it would depend on who sits in the players’ hearing. Fouche was particularly unlucky to find his case heard in a DC hearing chaired by people who didn’t appear to know much about rugby.

Willemse might not be so fortunate and might find himself for the second season in succession missing the Stormers’ quarterfinal in Glasgow. Last year he was injured. This year he’s not injured and on recent form would be an important cog missing from the Stormers machine if he is not there.

Surely the URC organisers want the best players to be on parade in the showpiece part of the season? And wasn’t it enough punishment that he missed the final quarter of the Cardiff game due to having to take an early shower?

Of course, Willemse could easily have been injured in that game, something Dobson was clearly quite aware of in leaving out Evan Roos, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu (from the starting team), Warrick Gelant and others.

LEINSTER COULD BE ENVIED - OR NOT

Which brings me to Leinster, who could be envied for having 12 players named in the recent British and Irish Lions squad announcement ahead of the Home Union composite team’s forthcoming tour of Australia.

That’s a lot and it is a record, and by some distance, for a club team (actually Leinster are a provincial team) in the modern era.

Critics in the UK and Ireland are having a lot to say about that, but from a South African viewpoint what is more interesting than the fact Andy Farrell backed so many Leinster’s players is what impact it could have on Leinster’s challenge for the URC title over the coming month.

By resting players for protection reasons against Cardiff, Dobson highlighted a perennial risk in rugby: It is a contact sport and players get injured, plus they might also get red carded and suspended.

If I was a player called up for the Lions squad it would be hard not to start every game with the possibility of being injured in the back of my mind. You are only a Lion if you go on tour, and this is an opportunity that doesn’t come around every day. It happens only once in every four years, like a World Cup.

When a World Cup squad is selected there aren’t usually provincial or club games those players still have to play. There may be warmup games, and former Bok captain Jean de Villiers might recall that he missed out on the 2003 RWC, which admittedly was a good one to miss, after being injured in a warmup game in I think it was Bloemfontein.

In the case of the Lions that were selected two weeks ago and who gathered for the first time to get kitted out in London this past Sunday, the deciding stage of their respective club seasons is still ahead of them.

Add in the last league games of their competitions and it means there could be as many as four tough knock-out style games still to be played. The chance of injury in a contact sport is high, the chance of making a mistake that could force a suspension is high too.

IT COULD WORK TWO WAYS

It applies to clubs other than Leinster too of course, and it was interesting to learn that the 12 players from Leinster and the four selected from the Glasgow Warriors shared a minivan from Heathrow on Sunday. If the Warriors win against the Stormers, they will play Leinster again in the semifinal.

Does the fact that Leinster have more Lions representatives than Glasgow mean they are more vulnerable in these final weeks of the club season than Glasgow are?

It could, although Dobson will be hoping that some of the attention of some of the Glasgow stars like Sione Tuipoluto and Huw Jones will be deflected by their Lions call-ups too.

Yet for some players it can work two ways. Being a scratch team, the Lions aren’t an established group divided into test players and midweek players until well into their tour.

Players still have to play for their places in the test series, and it might not have been a coincidence that one of the star performers among the Lions playing in the Gallagher Premiership last week was Harlequins’ Marcus Smith, who after being dropped by England has ground to make up if he wants to be a test Lions.

The presence of coach Farrell at some of their remaining games might serve as a reminder to Leinster that they need to perform and that motivation could override fear of injury in some instances. Those instances being the one like Smith’s where he feels he has to perform to impress the coach.

If there are enough of those players in the Leinster team it could galvanise them. It is though a potential double edged sword and it is interesting to a South African as this is the first time the Lions are touring while this country is aligned to northern hemisphere competitions.

We might know more in the coming weeks but if there are key players who feel the need to do what Dobson tried to do as a coach through his selection by protecting themselves it might just work in favour of the Bulls, Sharks or Stormers during the playoff phase.