It’s a different sport but there’s a documentary out on one of the streaming channels about former England football captain and golden boy David Beckham that in one part of the four-episode series provides some food for thought ahead of this weekend’s Rugby World Cup quarterfinals.

The relevant episode was the one that focused on Beckham’s sending-off in a playoff match against Argentina at the 1998 Fifa World Cup finals in France. Beckham was clearly targeted by the Argentinian players and when Diego Simeone provoked him, Beckham kicked out at him from the ground.

Out came the red card and thus started an overnight swing for Beckham from being the hero of England to being the villain, something that slid to ridiculous levels in the following domestic season when the player was jeered and booed in every away game his team Manchester United played, with Beckham, his wife and young baby subject to death threats.

There’s a lot of emotion, passion and nationalism that goes into the support of international sport, but what makes it so alluring and addictive is also what brings out the dark side of people and the mob psychology. The tribalism and fanaticism that drives the game can become ugly and ridiculous, as it did then.

IT’S TOO EASY TO BE RED-CARDED

So the question on the eve of the RWC quarterfinals is who might get to play the role of Beckham once we’ve gone beyond Sunday and four nations are dealing with the despair and abject disappointment of going home two weeks early? The answer is that, given how easy it is for referees and TMOs to dismiss a player, it could be anybody.

The Springboks, like the other big teams, haven’t lost a player to a card yet in this tournament, but you don’t have to think too hard in a quest to recall when it could so easily have gone pear-shaped. When a Tongan player jumped on Eben Etzebeth in the last pool game, the fact the South African player had his hands at his side and essentially did nothing didn’t deter the on-field referee from querying a possible card before the TMO put him off.

This wasn’t long after common sense had prevailed, in my view anyway, when the same ref had not sanctioned the Tongan player who effectively put 2019 Bok World Cup hero Makazole Mapimpi out of the tournament. Yes, it had dire consequences, but it did look like an accident, and that should matter. Not looking at whether an action is intentional or not is frankly idiocy.

CONSISTENCY IS A PROBLEM

Yet that same incident might almost certainly have led to a red card with another referee, so no prizes for guessing that consistency remains a big issue in the sport. Referees, and TMOs just have too much influence on games and how they might turn out, as shown by how much talk there has been in the buildup to Sunday’s big quarterfinal involving the hosts about the advantage they have playing at their headquarters. It isn’t just noise the crowd makes that is referenced, but the impact it could have on the referee, who in that game will be New Zealander Ben O’Keefe.

The Kiwi was in charge of the recent Ireland/South Africa game which was hugely physical and intense, and yet there wasn’t a single card or major incident. Let’s hope that Sunday is the same, for South Africans are so passionate about rugby that it is easy to perceive a red-carded player becoming the villain that Beckham was. Well, not to quite the same extent, there isn’t the yobbo element to rugby support that there is to the support of English football, but you know what I mean.

A RED CARD COST FRANCE LAST TIME

And France, particularly because they are hosts, won’t look as kindly on one of their own if they repeat what Sebastien Vahaamahina did in the corresponding stage of the 2019 World Cup, when they played Wales. To refresh memories, Vahaamahina lost his head just when his team looked to be getting some momentum and elbowed a Welsh player.

That, unlike so many other incidents that get red-carded now, was both intentional and stupid. It cost his team the game. It should have been France that South Africa faced in the semifinal, not Wales, and it was one player’s actions that cost the French.

You don’t need to be stupid to be red-carded now, and let’s not forget how the two red cards, one to Bok flanker Pieter-Steph du Toit and the other to French captain Antoine Dupont, impacted on the last meeting between South Africa and France. Du Toit’s head clash that saw him go off early in the piece looked like the result of him being pushed into the tackle, something that with the help of a clever lawyer nearly enabled England captain Owen Farrell to escape sanction following a dangerous hit in a warmup game.

The Vaahamahina incident wasn’t the only one to impact a major World Cup playoff game in recent years. In 2011, Sam Warburton’s sending off early in the game pretty much killed the Welsh chances in their semifinal, ironically also against France, in Auckland. Warburton accepted responsibility and it wasn’t quite the type of incident that is these days creating the perception that it’s all become a bit of a lottery. If the ball goes near you, it may lead to an accidental head clash that leads to a card…

MISTAKES MADE NOW CAN HAUNT A PLAYER FOR LIFE


Not all nations are as crazy about rugby as South Africa, New Zealand and Wales are, so perhaps the extent of any vilification or at the very least the hangover from a carding incident will depend on who he is playing for. But with the Cricket World Cup being played this year concurrently with the rugby, it is noticeable how often commentators and by extension fans still focus on Alan Donald for the 1999 run-out in the Egbaston semifinal, and for that matter, Herschelle Gibbs’ dropped catch (Steve Waugh, you know the one) in a pool game also against Australia before that.

World Cups can define careers, ruin careers or introduce an asterisk for even the most stellar careers, as perhaps Donald has found.

Good players come back and let their sporting ability do the talking, as Beckham did, but Beckham also admitted in the documentary that the 1998 incident still haunts him. And haunted for life is the result for any player seen to lose his country a World Cup playoff game by being sent off.

So let’s hope that the four quarterfinals to be played in France this weekend proceed without a card, regardless of the colour of that card, for these days you don’t really have to be a villain for that to happen. We’ve moved on from the time when actions that aren’t sanctioned by the ref become the subject of media scrutiny, such as Tana Umaga on Brian O’Driscoll in the 2005 series between the British and Irish Lions and Schalk Burger in Pretoria in the next Lions series four years later. These days you can be sent off for just happening to be in the path of another player.

Rugby World Cup 2023 quarterfinals

Wales v Argentina (Marseille, Saturday 17.00)

This game, like all the quarterfinals, is hard to call. Argentina were awful in their opening game against England but have recovered a bit from then and showed a lot of passion against Japan. Wales have been poor for a while but look to have recovered some pride at this World Cup, although they were a little lucky to edge out Fiji at the start. The memory of their annihilation of the Wallabies is what sways it for me.

Prediction: Wales by 7

Ireland v New Zealand (Paris, Saturday 21.00)

Ireland had their injury problems at the start of the week but many of the significant ones were sorted out. They’ve beaten the All Blacks in three of their last four meetings, and have been better at this World Cup than the Kiwis have been. But New Zealand always have one big world-class performance in them, so don’t bet your house on it, even though this is probably the one quarterfinal where there’s a clear favourite. And that is the world’s current No 1 team.

Prediction: Ireland by 9

England v Fiji (Marseille, Sunday 17.00)

Fiji beat England in a warmup game, but that might not have been helpful to Fiji, for it warned England about what the Pacific island team is capable of. England went through the group phase undefeated, so there’s a perception they’ve regained some of the pride they lost in the warmups, but Samoa dented that pride in last week’s clash. What England do have on their side though is what might be a greater clarity about what they want to do, which is play boring rugby.

Prediction: England to scrape it

France v South Africa (Paris, Sunday 19.00)

All week we have been reading the stats from the tournament that suggest the home team should start as favourites, and casting national affiliation aside and putting on a neutral hat, or at least trying to, the evidence is hard to argue against. As is the contention that the French 16th man, meaning the crowd, will create a 17th man in the form of the match officials. Stats, and home-ground advantage don’t mean that much though if you are taken out of your comfort zone, and France haven’t played a team with the South African physicality since Marseille last November. Add in the fact that Springbok players don’t treat World Cup playoff games as just another sporting event, and play as if they are at war and their nation’s future is at stake, and all the evidence suggesting a French victory could well be rendered meaningless. As a South African, I do hope that is the case, but if you are asking the head rather than the heart, then France are favourites.