Red cards are now haunting All Blacks

Peter Jackson

In their first 112 years of Test rugby, the All Blacks got by without any more than three players being sent off: Cyril Brownlie against England in 1925, Colin Meads against Scotland in 1967 and Sonny Bill Williams during the last Lions series in 2017.

Put another way, they lost a player to foul play on average once almost every 40 years, a fact which will be greeted with some glee by longterm subscribers to the conspiracy theory that too many referees were too soft on New Zealand for too long.

Recent evidence would suggest that is no longer the case. Four All Blacks have been sent off in the last four seasons: three against Australia in successive years, Scott Barrett in 2019, Ofa Tu’ungafasi in 2020, Jordie Barrett in 2021 and Angus Ta’avao against Ireland last week.