Harry Ellis received a yellow card for what was deemed a late challenge on Johnny Wilkinson at Welford Road(personally, I didn't consider Harry's challenge dangerous and thought the yellow card was harsh) - Lawes challenge was dangerous, and he appeared to set out to poleaxe Toby Flood(with a cursory wrap after the contact to make it appear a legal tackle). Even American Football had to face up to the problem of late hits(designed to injure) and the officiating teams set out to penalise them more appropriately last season. The bottom line is Barnes should have called for the TMO( he appeared to change his mind - possibly because the screens at Twickenham are to far away for him to see clearly, and he'd have to allow the TMO to make the decision whether the challenge was dangerous and warranted a yellow card).
Personally, I'm sick and tired of Mallinder's approach - cultivating an excess of ill-feeling and bad-blood into what I always considered a fierce but fair local rivalry. I couldn't agree more with Richard Cockerill's after match comments.
"How Northampton decide to behave is up to them," said Cockerill. Because my players weren't accusing other players of anything or hitting people late. Leicester were very disciplined and thus got their rewards. I didn't ask anybody to hit anybody late. I didn't tell someone to swear at anybody."
"I was saying to the fourth official surely we need to go to the television match official," he said.
"It's clearly foul play, a penalty is given and you've broken an international fly-half. For me it's a yellow card or potentially more.
"It's OK to hit players late and OK for players to leave the field concussed, is that what we're saying? I'm protecting my players."
That really will have anybody who knows me laughing. Yes you're right about the definition but it was the clearest most authoritative I could find easily. From an embarrassingly less reputable source I've got, "Referees may not penalise some of these infringements if in their judgement the offending player had no intent to break the rules (e.g. a marginally late tackle on a player who has just kicked or passed the ball)". As usual couldn't find much that was clear by the RFU.