The Television Match Official alerted the referee, Pierre Brousset, to the incident after it was initially missed. However, the review process turned into the farce with no replays appearing on the screens at Soldier Field causing a delay that lasted longer than the action to that point.
Having given up hope of the replays appearing on the screen, Brousset and his touchline officials ran over to a small screen on the side of the pitch to review the incident. They concluded that it was worthy of a yellow card and met the threshold to be sent to the bunker for further review.
A few minutes later, the message was sent down to the pitch that it had been upgraded to a 20-minute red card and that Beirne’s American dream was over. This came much to the surprise of Ireland captain Dan Sheehan and Beirne, who was sat on a chair at the side of the pitch.
The drawn out – and unexplained delay – will hardly have helped win over the Chicago crowd with the process to reach the decision a mess.
Was it the right call?
Given Beirne was upright and made contact with the head of Barrett, there is no doubt that a sanction of some sort was warranted.
The initial decision of a yellow card felt just about right as the head contact looked largely accidental, was not at high force and considering Beirne had next to no time to react. Upgrading the card to a red felt extremely harsh.
What was the reaction?
Former Wales captain Sam Warburton: “[It is] a penalty, maybe. He is not expecting Barrett to have it. He puts his arms crossed to not make a tackle, he is almost protecting himself and absorbing him. Penalty and move on.”
Former Ireland and Ulster back-rower Chris Henry: “It doesn’t look good, it happens at face pace, but Tadhg doesn’t make an attempt to wrap an arm and dip his body. It’s reckless, I would be surprised if it didn’t come to anything.”
Ex-England fly-half Andy Goode: “Like it or not that’s a red all day long for Beirne, rules is rules.”
Former Wales Rugby union and league star Jonathan Davies: “Never a red card [in] Ire v NZ. Barrett wasn’t expecting the ball and seemed to run into TB [Beirne]. All for health and safety but games are being ruined.”
