All Blacks v Ireland part III - July 16 8.05am Ireland time

In terms of what to do, it’s hard to get away from red cards ruining matches in rugby. It doesn’t always (Australia beat England with 14 for 50+ minutes) of course, but it does often enough. England’s red card in Dublin last year rendered the outcome a formality.

The question becomes whether that’s a price worth paying (I think it is) as we view the whole issue as an existential threat to the sport, much greater than disappointing contests during the transition period.

I’d probably lean towards removing the nuance in the laws that makes Porter’s challenge not a red card. Draw the line in a place where players are incentivised to change their game quite significantly on this issue.

But sometimes bans matter and sometimes they don't.

If Porter had been suspended today, he'd have been banned for two URC games in September that he wouldn't have been playing in anyway. It was no real punishment. Likewise, if you're playing in a World Cup final and you've a chance to take out their best player in the first few minutes, would you care if you miss the next game?

I'm not sure how bringing out that tired argument brings anything to the discussion.

A player can be red carded in the first 5 minutes for something completely accidental - red card and the team is down to 14 for the rest of the match.

A player can deliberately strike another player in the first 5 minutes of a match, doesn't get caught, and goes on to have a man-of-the-match performance helping the team to win.

A player can tackle a player in the air in the last 2 minutes of the game - red card, only misses 2 minutes of the match.

More reds doesn't stop accidental things from happening. I'm only suggesting an alternative that still punishes the player, but is fairer across the board. An infringement in the 10th minute is the same as one in the 50th. A missed red card offence doesn't mean a team played an entire match with 15 when they should have been down to 14.

So have we arrived at some people get away with not getting carded so people who are caught shouldn’t be punished as harshly?

But the cost to the other team is uneven too. If I do a late hit and take out Johnny Sexton in the 1st minute of the game, I can be replaced by another player after 20 mins, but Johnny is out for the entire game....

If I take out Johnny at the 60th minute, he's only been removed from the final quarter of the game

A red card offense is the most severe punishment available in a game of rugby. It needs to punish both the player, and his team, because otherwise it incentivises tactics where the key player from another team can be deliberately injured

In the business end of a tournament, the only punishment that counts is on the pitch, citing the player or banning them afterwards is meaningless, for example, Porter will get a 2-3 game suspension which will be for games that he wasn't going to be selected for anyway as he will be rested at the start of next season to make up for his extended season with Ireland

There are plenty of things that happen in rugby that are accidental, or have no malice, or are due to mistiming in a dynamic situation. 

And the referees have plenty of scope to look at those mitigating factors and decide on the level of sanction.

The rules don't need to change, player behaviour does.

Concussions are at an all time high because players are bigger and stronger than ever and there are more games than ever.

I'm guessing a Head Knock is where they have a minor head injury that is not deemed to be a concussion and they'll be back after a week or so, a HIA is where they're still assessing the injury to see if it's concussion or not, or if they're on the return to play protocols, while concussion is the most severe of the three where there is persistent concussion symptoms and the player has failed the assessments in the return to play protocols and so they cannot give any estimate of when they might recover

Some of these guys may never play again, and others will play again who probably shouldn't