Jean de Villiers Destroys Rugby’s ‘Always Illegal’ Rule – “It Makes Zero Sense
The Springboks smashed Ireland physically in Dublin – but the biggest fallout from the match wasn’t just about scrums, mauls or Damian Willemse’s brilliance.
It was about cards.
On The Verdict S03 EP.04, former Springbok captain Jean de Villiers cut through the noise with one brutal assessment of the current head-contact framework and tackle laws:
Nobody really understands what “always illegal” means anymore.
For De Villiers, it’s not just a technical problem. It’s a threat to how people watch and enjoy the sport.
Card Confusion Is Taking Over the Conversation
The Springboks–Ireland Test turned into a card-heavy, stop-start contest that left fans fuming and pundits exhausted.
- Multiple yellow cards
- A 20-minute red
- Endless TMO checks and bunker referrals
- A feeling that the game was being refereed by precedent, not common sense
Jean de Villiers’ frustration is simple: the game has reached a point where players, coaches, pundits and fans are no longer sure how a tackle will be judged from one week to the next.
Even with Nigel Owens trying to explain World Rugby’s framework on air, De Villiers admitted he still has “so many questions” about how officials climb the ladder from:
Penalty → Yellow → Permanent Red
Especially around that phrase that keeps coming up in briefings: “always illegal”.
What Does ‘Always Illegal’ Even Mean?
De Villiers zeroed in on the concept of “always illegal” as used in the head-contact framework.
In theory, it sounds straightforward:
If a tackle is fundamentally illegal from the tackler’s starting position, there’s no mitigation and you’re immediately at red-card entry.
In practice? It’s chaos.
Jean de Villiers broke the problem down like this:
- A defender can lower his body height, shorten his steps and clearly try to get into a legal tackling position.
- The ball-carrier dips late, steps, or the ball pops at the last second.
- Contact ends up head-to-head or shoulder-to-head in a fraction of a second.
And then the replay comes up, the crowd roars, and suddenly:
The tackler is judged as if he was “always illegal” – even though his initial technique was good.
That’s where De Villiers wants clarity:
- When exactly does “always illegal” start?
- At the moment the defender sets his height?
- At the moment of impact?
- Or is it just a catch-all phrase to justify red cards after the fact?
If a tackler stands upright and lazy, never bends, never adjusts and makes direct head contact – De Villiers agrees that’s genuinely “always illegal”. That’s what the framework was meant to fix.
But in dynamic situations where a defender clearly lowers his height and the attacker dips late, applying the same “always illegal” label doesn’t make sense.
Sacha vs O’Brien: Same Weekend, Different Outcomes
The Ireland game delivered two perfect case studies for De Villiers’ argument.
- Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s tackle
- Scrambled defence, arm wrapping, body height dropping.
- Contact high, but with evidence of Sacha trying to pull out once he anticipates head contact.
- Outcome: penalty only.
- O’Brien on Canan Moodie
- Upright body position, clear head collision picture.
- Fits every classic “yellow card” frame we’ve seen over the past few seasons.
- Outcome: penalty only as well.
De Villiers’ frustration isn’t that either call was necessarily wrong – it’s that rugby has become impossible to predict:
- In earlier November games, similar “tucked shoulder” shots went straight to red.
- This week, with the whole rugby world watching, similar shapes ended up as penalties.
His warning is sharp:
“Next week those same tackles might both be permanent reds.”
That’s not a framework. That’s a lottery.
The Player Is Always Guilty – And That’s a Problem
De Villiers and Schalk Burger agree on another key issue: in the modern system, the tackler starts guilty.
The process often works like this:
- Any head contact = immediate card entry point
- Officials then search for mitigation
- If they don’t find enough, it’s yellow or red
- The defender rarely gets the benefit of the doubt
That leads to ridiculous scenarios where:
- A tackler with good technique and strong body height can still be marched because the attacker dipped late at the last second.
- Players are sent off even when they’ve done almost everything the coaching manuals now demand.
De Villiers believes the sport has to move back to a place where:
- Technique is rewarded, not punished.
- The ball-carrier’s responsibility to stay safe is recognised too.
- Defenders don’t walk into every tackle with a red-card shadow hanging over them.
Losing Fans: When Even Experts Don’t Understand the Process
The most worrying line from Jean de Villiers wasn’t technical. It was emotional.
He said bluntly that people don’t understand how decisions are being reached – and that rugby will lose supporters if that continues.
Think about that:
- A former Springbok captain.
- Regular TV pundit.
- Sitting on a show with another Bok legend (Schalk Burger) and an experienced analyst (Hanyani Shimange).
- All of them openly admitting they still don’t really know how the framework will be applied from game to game.
If they’re confused, what chance does a casual fan have?
De Villiers even suggested bringing Nigel Owens back in to explain it again, but you could hear the subtext: if you need multiple TV explainers just so fans can follow a tackle decision, something is badly wrong with the design.
The Bigger Fear: Rugby’s Culture Is Shifting the Wrong Way
Behind the “always illegal” debate is a deeper cultural shift that De Villiers and the panel don’t like.
They highlighted how:
- Players now stay down, hold their head or neck and wait for the replay instead of bouncing up out of pride.
- Big screen directors replay incidents again and again, whipping up the crowd and increasing pressure on the referee.
- Every big shot is instantly framed as potential foul play rather than a legitimate dominant tackle.
Rugby’s old line – “a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen” – depends on a certain toughness and shared understanding of risk. That doesn’t mean ignoring concussion, but it does mean keeping the sport recognisable.
Right now, De Villiers fears we’re drifting towards a version of the game where:
- Players, coaches and fans are constantly gaming the system.
- Cards and frameworks overshadow the actual rugby.
- The flow of the contest is broken by endless checks, bunker reviews and debates about wording.
What Jean de Villiers Wants World Rugby to Change
De Villiers isn’t pretending there’s an easy fix, but his message is clear.
He wants to see:
- Clearer, consistent definitions of “always illegal” and when mitigation genuinely applies.
- A return to a system where players don’t start guilty – the entry point should be penalty, not automatic yellow or red.
- Permanent reds reserved for obvious dirty play: punches, elbows, kicks, deliberate foul shots.
- Everything else handled with penalty, then yellow, and only escalated when the evidence is overwhelming.
Most of all, he wants a framework that fans can understand without needing a law book and a 10-minute TMO segment.
Until that happens, “always illegal” will keep feeling like something else entirely:
Always confusing.
