Austin Healey

[amazing tiger]

Apologies if this has been mentioned before but within the last couple of seasons it seems Austin has wanted a red or yellow card for every infringement on the pitch! Nearly every high tackle or ruck infringement that looks bad is a red in his eyes. Frankly this is becoming very annoying to watch rugby is a physical game collisions happen but it’s tiring hearing him want a card for every high impact collision on the field! Anyone else notice this?

[tigerburnie]

Rent a mouth looking for a reaction, he has caused me to cancel my BT Sports, so he's costing his employers money(not a lot, but I doubt I'm the only one).

[WirralExile]

In the Sarries v Sale game, he is right about many of the infringements. The creeping around the ruck is not something I want to watch. The high tackles by mainly Sarries should be punished, they have got away with this style of play for many seasons. Itoje should have gone to the bin

[Nofrontteeth]

A closed league and regular presenters equals repeated tedious journalism and commentary. It also brings out the LI, Wasps, Quins bias in them. In credit I suggest that Austin and Ben are not as bad.
Do the presentation directors etc realise the majority of viewers are rugby savvy and not Twickenham 6N camp-followers.

[Soggypitch]

Apologies if this has been mentioned before but within the last couple of seasons it seems Austin has wanted a red or yellow card for every infringement on the pitch! Nearly every high tackle or ruck infringement that looks bad is a red in his eyes. Frankly this is becoming very annoying to watch rugby is a physical game collisions happen but it’s tiring hearing him want a card for every high impact collision on the field! Anyone else notice this?

Completely agree. Yes tackles need to be consistently lower, but it drives me mad when they look at stuff in super slo-mo rather than real time speed. Most incidents are just unfortunate rugby collisions.......obviously there are exceptions that need to be properly dealt with, but as you say Austin just seems to crave cards!!

[Nofrontteeth]

Austin craves a team of 15 backs but we know he's saying it tongue in cheek. Craving cards I suggest not, but highlighting foul play may be a planned editorial.
I've been dropping in and out of the Sarries game and everytime I saw flying arms at head height mainly by the home side.

[RichieB]

I’m not 100% sure, but I thought the red card (fully deserved by the way) was caused by a tip tackle by the Sarries guy Tompkins who should have had a yellow. Even though it was reviewed I can’t work out why they overlooked this foul play. Unless it was the Saracens factor again.

[happywomble]

I think the Sale wingers judo throws were prompted by Tompkins screaming in his face celebrating the 'tackle'

[northerntiger]

I agree with the OP. Particularly around the tackle in the air, he used to squeal ‘duty of care’ whenever there was any sort of contact in the air. The slo mo also irritates, especially in collisions like Wigglesworth’s yellow the other week when the guy ran into him and clashed heads. Slowed it looked bad, real time he had no time to react

[Old Hob]

I agree he issues a lot of unnecessary appeals for foul play but I find his comments on back play and patterns insightful.

[sam16111986]

Have you considered that in an age of of social media BT want interesting and sometimes a little controversial content? They want people clicking on their various social media accounts to discuss the game and the things highlighted by the presenters. Austin is very good at finding talking points even where there aren't any, he's doing his job.

[strawclearer]

Have you considered that in an age of of social media BT want interesting and sometimes a little controversial content? They want people clicking on their various social media accounts to discuss the game and the things highlighted by the presenters. Austin is very good at finding talking points even where there aren't any, he's doing his job.

[YoWaGoWan]

For me i think Austin (me me) Healy is the worst pundit of any sport, his constant analysing of every bit of play bores my boots off not to mention his childish attempts at humour, he's grossly over opinionated, and with him constantly disagreeing with officials decisions sets a bad example.
I truly believe he is bad for our sport.

[Nofrontteeth]

Players trying to decapitate their opponents are bad for our sport.

[Ian Cant]

Austin just wants consistency. In yesterday’s Quins’ game there was a similar if not the same incident when two Quins players went into the Irish guy! TMO calls for a review but Christophe rightly judges it’s just a penalty!
Sensible reffing is needed along with the need to protect players: in my low level standard of playing rugby I rarely got high tackled and rarely if ever tackled high! In training practicing tackling on the tackle bag if anyone tackled higher than the chalk lines about a third way up on the bags we had to do a certain amount of press ups! My coaches used to say: tackle round the legs and your opponents going nowhere!