Red card.

A lot of people will be thinking why couldn’t Angus Gardner have have refereed the first Test between the All Blacks and France, after he handed Les Blues a red card this morning.

French fullback Benjamin Fall has just seen red for a challenge in the air on Beauden Barrett, that saw the playmaker go completely vertical and land very dangerously on his head.

Fall clearly wasn’t out to intentionally hurt Barrett and had his eyes on the ball the entire time. But the laws are there to protect player welfare, and the French international was never realistically in a position to win the ball and he put Barrett’s safety at risk.

The same way the All Blacks didn’t try to intentionally fracture Remy Grosso’s skull in two places – but they did, and should have been punished. The correct decision to show Fall red.

It’s just a shame we didn’t see the correct decision last week.