SYDNEY :Australia coach Joe Schmidt said Carlo Tizzano’s reaction to the contentious clear-out by British & Irish Lions forward Jac Morgan in last week’s second test was not voluntary but the result of the amount of force he was subjected to.
Morgan’s clear-out came at a ruck just before the Lions scored a match-winning try last week in Melbourne and the Welshman’s action was cleared by referee Andrea Piardi after reference to the Television Match Official (TMO).
Tizzano was pilloried online for recoiling away from the ruck with his hands to his head after the contact, with some former players likening his reaction to a soccer player diving for a penalty.
Schmidt, though, said it was simply a matter of physics.
“He’s had a really tough week, Carlo, he’s copped a lot of online abuse,” the former schoolteacher told reporters on Thursday.
“There were just over 54Gs of direct force that went through the neck, along with almost 2200 (radians) of rotational force, which is enough to cause serious injury.
“I think we’re all aware of Newton’s third law, that for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction when that force hits him and the speed of his head collapsing down.
“He recoiled out the back of the ruck. And I don’t think he wanted to recoil like that, but that’s the nature of force, that there’s an equal and opposite reaction.”
Schmidt left Tizzano out of his team for Saturday’s third test after he turned up sore at training on Tuesday, although he said the 25-year-old had returned to his normal “irrepressible” self by Thursday.
The New Zealander made it clear after last week’s match that he felt the clear-out was illegal and said it made a mockery of World Rugby’s campaign for player safety.
That did not go down well with World Rugby chief Alan Gilpin but on Thursday Schmidt said he wanted to put it in the past and look forward to Saturday’s dead-rubber third test in Sydney.
“We’ve got a test in 48 hours, and you can lament all sorts of things,” he said.
“I actually feel like Andrea Piardi had a good game, there’s a couple of decisions we might not agree with, but I thought he refereed well.
“So we’re not looking at refereeing decisions, we’re looking at what we could have done better, making sure that we try to repair those things.”
