Rugby fans have been left horrified after a seemingly dangerous tackle in an NPC game in New Zealand was only punished with a yellow card.
Wellington's Asafo Aumua was given 10 minutes on the naughty step for a tackle that made direct contact to the head of Taranaki replacement Daniel Waite. The hooker's left arm appeared to be tucked as he led with the shoulder, in pretty reckless fashion.
Waite had already offloaded the ball when he felt the full force of Aumua's sizeable frame. But the tackle was only deemed worthy of a yellow card after the TMO's intervention. One thing that may have been seen as mitigation was that Waite was in the process of being tackled and was losing height himself.
But Aumua's efforts never really came close to being legal as there appeared to be a lack of wrapping of the arms in the hit.
A clip of the incident was posted on social media by journalist Jamie Wall and the reaction has been pretty visceral.
Newport favourite Simon Raiwalui commented: "That’s a bad one, reckless, left his feet, no arms and direct contact to the head."
While former Dragons boss Bernard Jackman said: "Hard to believe that this was deemed only worth a yellow card."
An account by the name of @RugbyOnlooker added: "Disgrace, he could easily pull out, month long ban imo."
@DermotKeyes said: "An outrageous 'tackle'. A stonewall red."
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