There's a part of me that winces when people use the term 'optics'. There's something about it that just screams of detached PR jargon - used whenever something is done that might not help a brand's public opinion all that much.
But, regardless of my distain for the word, I don't really need to sit here and tell you that the optics of SANZAAR announcing their plans to push on with the 20 minute red card in the same week that 185 former players diagnosed with brain injuries issued legal proceedings isn't exactly great. Put simply, it's not a good look.
And, it should be pointed out, at a time when World Rugby show no signs of implementing it worldwide.
Worse still when the decision is portrayed as some sort of crusade to protect the 'integrity' of international matches. I bet the Mayor from Jaws wishes he'd used that line when Chrissie Watkins never came back from her spot of skinny dipping.
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Obviously, the tournament begins next week so there's not exactly a good time to announce it. But to go strong in making it sound like you're doing the game a favour when there's around 200 former professionals with brain damage is a bit much.
Maybe that's why I don't like the word 'optics'. Because it doesn't go far enough. It always sounds like understatement when you consider the optics - somehow, it's a little more sanitised. Sure, you can say the optics of this are bad or not great, but the reality is that the crusade against the rest of the rugby world is tone-deaf in my view and, frankly, a little deplorable.
There is, of course, a lot to unpack in this announcement. The fact that SANZAAR remain insistent on pursuing this law trial, despite World Rugby voting against rolling it out worldwide, only serves to highlight the growing chasm in attitudes towards high tackles and deterrents between the northern and southern hemispheres.
Granted, while the statement says SANZAAR as a whole is pushing for this, it's hard to imagine the South African Rugby Union are really the ones driving changes. With their domestic clubs playing rugby in the URC, they are already more aligned with the northern hemisphere than they once were.
Instead, it seems to be New Zealand and Australia, who have pushed these rules domestically in Super Rugby, who want the 20-minute red card.
More than any other union, they're competing with a product in rugby league which is threatening them and their future. You can sense the concern in every quote that arises around rugby's bloated lawbook or league's superior entertainment value.
However, that concern is turning into misplaced anger, it would seem. And it's being targeted at the notion that red cards ruin matches. They don't, of course. Well not always, anyway.
Anyone who saw England's Six Nations clash with Ireland this year would tell you as much. In fact, I've lost track of the amount of times I've seen the phrase 'rEd cARdS rUiN maTChEs' posted sarcastically on social media whenever a match hasn't actually been destroyed by a card.
Yet, constantly the narrative coming from the Antipodes is that rugby union is being ruined by a spate of cards - with league always being the comparison point. With respect to league, there's a lot of things to admire about the sport but, again leaning on that idea of optics, rugby union should not be looking to the other code in terms of how it deals with head injuries.
If not in actual medical practises, then in attitudes. Union has enough issues on its hands without appearing as blasé as league does - given the recent State of Origin saw a number of concussions. Worse still, they were treated by commentators and pundits as 'scalps' - getting rid of key players through the means of a brain injury.
With around 200 ex-players already having early onset dementia, probable CTE and other neurological injuries - and many more likely to in the future - rugby union doesn't need that nonsense. Yet, in continually pandering to SANZAAR over these different rules, it only serves to push them closer to that mindset when league is right on their doorstep.
World Rugby will likely argue that they're continuing to collect data through these trials, but it just seems like widening the gulf between the attitudes in the two hemispheres. Will any data collected really result in the 20-minute red card being implemented worldwide?
It seems unlikely. If World Rugby have already rejected it once, then it feels more like a campaign than a trial at this point.
So why are they persisting with it when there's seemingly little chance it won't be used at the World Cup next year? SANZAAR complain about a World Cup final being decided by a red card but that seems more likely to happen when you spend the years beforehand playing with your own set of rules like the kid who brought his own ball to the playground.
Rather than embracing the laws everyone else is playing and learning to work to them, they're playing their own game - one based on spectacle, dictated by broadcasters and the mindset that only 15v15 works. The longer that continues, the bigger the disconnect grows and the louder the calls for more change become.
What closes that disconnect, who knows? Everyone playing under the same laws would be a start.
Until then, we'll continue to get more weeks like this. Legal action in one part of the world, tone deaf crusades in another.
The 'optics' of it all, for a sport desperate for any sort of good image right now, aren't great.
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