Angus Bell spent 10 minutes in the sin-bin at Twickenham for a hip-drop tackle. Schalk Burger thinks the Wallabies prop had no other way to stop his man.
“That doesn’t sit so nicely with me,” the former Springboks flanker said on The Verdict. “What’s he supposed to do?”
Bell was carded in the 32nd minute of England’s 45–22 win over Australia on 8 November. Should that tackle be a yellow card? Tell us in the comments.
What is a hip-drop tackle, and what changed?
A hip-drop tackle is one where the tackler holds the ball carrier, swings his own hips round and drops his weight onto the carrier’s legs. The trapped leg takes the load, which is how ankles and knees get broken.
World Rugby wrote it into Law 9.13 as dangerous play from 1 November 2026. The sanction is a penalty, with the card left to the referee. A crackdown on the knee-drop tackle, where the tackler’s knee lands on the carrier, began on 5 October.
Bell was among the first players punished under the new wording.
What happened to Angus Bell?
He tackled England wing Immanuel Feyi-Waboso and was shown yellow. Feyi-Waboso did not come back out after half-time, and England are now a wing short.
Burger’s objection is that the injury is what drew the eye.
“He’s leg driving, you’re going to stop him,” he said. “So it’s almost like a wrestling move where you use your hip to twist him around. And the other thing is, if he didn’t get injured, no one would have seen it.”
Why do the panel think the law is unworkable?
Hanyani Shimange, a former Springboks hooker, described chasing a runner who has already stepped past: you grab the jersey, end up on his legs, and he keeps driving. “I don’t know how you stop it,” he said.
Burger said the knee-drop crackdown has the same flaw for tall tacklers.
He called it “physically impossible to make that tackle without your knee touching it”, and said the game was being made “too complicated for our own good”.
Is there another side to this?
Host Jean de Villiers put it himself. He said the laws are there to make the game safe and pointed to the knee injuries the three of them carry.
“You don’t want that for anyone else,” De Villiers said. On the laws, though, he agreed with Burger: “I think they’re taking a lot out of it.”
Our view
Burger is right that the outcome shaped the decision. The law still has to exist. A tackle that ends a wing’s afternoon is the tackle the wording was written for, and “no one would have seen it” is an argument for better officiating of the ones that do no damage. What the law needs is a clear picture of the legal alternative. Players do not have one yet.
What happens next
The law applies for the rest of the Nations Championship. Australia face Scotland this weekend.
Quotes from The Verdict, Boks Unpacked X The Verdict, published 10 November 2026, from 8:34. Watch the episode.
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