Discussion

The primary aim of this study was to analyse sentiments expressed in posts on X on referee decisions to issue a red or yellow card for a dangerous or illegal tackle during the 2019 RWC. For red cards, sentiments expressed in posts were 2.2 times more likely to agree with the referee’s decision than disagree. Posts related to red cards were more likely to be reposted than posts related to yellow cards. Within the red card posts, those that agreed with a referee red card decision were more likely to be shared widely within the network than posts that disagreed with the decision. From a player welfare perspective, considering the increase in the number of tackle-related red cards compared with previous RWCs,31 the agreement and sharing of the referee decision demonstrates an intolerance towards clear and obvious illegal or dangerous play.

In contrast, sentiments expressed for yellow cards were mixed. Also, disagreeing with the referee received more shares than agreeing with the referee. Explaining these differences requires an understanding of how the 2019 HTSF produces the outcome of either yellow or red cards. A red card for a high tackle would result from a very distinct set of decisions, which would, by definition, include interpreting a tackle as having a high degree of danger and deciding that no mitigating factors should be applied to reduce the sanction level. In contrast, a yellow card would be the outcome if the referee decides that the degree of danger is low and no mitigation should apply or if the degree of danger is high but mitigation does apply.7 32 Finally, a penalty can be awarded if the degree of danger is assessed as low and mitigation is deemed to apply. The process thus relies on two decisions in which interpretation and a degree of subjectivity are required, and a red card decision is thus the result of only one possible pairing of decisions within the process. In contrast, a yellow card decision can be reached in two ways. Interpreting the degree of danger as low was guided in the HTSF by several identified video signs. For example, the low danger was assessed when the tackler’s speed was low rather than high, when the tackle was passive rather than dominant and when the tackler applied less force in the contact.7 32 Concerning mitigation, the HTSF provided a list of five factors that referees could consider to mitigate a sanction down from red card to yellow card or from yellow card to penalty. These included late changes in height by the ball carrier, indirect contact to the head and a tackler who was unsighted before contact. As with the degree of danger, a degree of subjective interpretation was required by match officials to decide whether or not mitigation should apply.

As a result of this subjective interpretation, decisions reached by different assessors may differ. They may also be confounded by several factors—time of the match, a close scoreline difference between teams, the presence of fans or the use of the television match official (TMO) itself.33–35 The greater agreement reflected in our X sentiment analysis may result from how observers judge the degree of danger and mitigation in red-carded tackles compared with yellow-carded tackles. It is notable that (a) red cards are less frequently awarded than yellow cards (5 vs 15 in the present cohort) and (b) yellow cards can be disagreed with on the basis that they are either too harsh or too lenient because of how the degree of danger and mitigation may be applied in series. That is, one observer may assess a yellow-carded tackle as too harsh because they feel that the combination of degree of danger and mitigation have been too strictly applied. In contrast, a different observer may assess a yellow card as too lenient. After all, they feel that the tackle was more dangerous or that mitigation should not have been applied.

In contrast, red card disagreements may only arise because a decision is thought of as too harsh when an observer feels that the match officials should either have applied mitigation but did not, or, that the degree of danger was low rather than the high. Since red cards are relatively rarer than yellow cards, it seems logical to suggest that match officials, reluctant to send players from the field unfairly, are more likely to issue red cards only when they are very confident that both danger is high and that mitigation is absent, and this is likely the reason for broader agreement with red card decisions than yellow card decisions.

From a player welfare perspective, arguably, the above discussion points highlight that issuing yellow cards and using the TMO can be reframed as a potential opportunity to create more awareness and learning around tackle safety. Within the ecosystem of sport, particularly rugby, sharing attitudes, opinions, views and emotions on social media plays a powerful role in creating a positive player welfare narrative. Given the priority to reduce head injury and impact through stricter sanctioning of high-risk tackles, most spectator sentiments expressed on social media platforms like X are related to referee decision-making—especially the issuing of cards, which could influence the outcome of matches. While 100% agreement between referees and spectators may never be attainable, the proportion of posts that agreed with the referee’s decision to issue red cards compared with yellow cards and the sharing of these sentiments suggests that changing the culture within the sport is possible, since observers engaged more positively than negatively with red card decisions. For yellow cards, decision-making consistency is the challenge7 as a low degree of danger or mitigation application for a tackle is subjective, more complex and may be influenced by conscious and unconscious bias.33

The question is how platforms such as X can help interpret yellow-carded tackle scenarios. Outside of sports, social media campaigns to deliver injury prevention messages have shown promise in shaping online conversions about the injury.27 World Rugby provided a range of resources to explain the HTSF before the 2019 RWC via social media and their website (although the impact of this campaign was not measured). The HTSF has also evolved since the 2019 RWC and is now called the Head Contact Process, which has been expanded to apply to the ruck event and tackle.32 Having said that, a potential avenue to create further awareness and understanding is an official postmatch analysis on X with the match-day officials, coaches, players and spectators present, where the referees explain their decision-making process. Indeed, access and understanding of the on-field and referee decision-making process improves fans’ appreciation of the decision and how it was derived.35 One of X’s more recent features, such as ‘community’ or ‘spaces’, can be used to host such an initiative. The point of the initiative is to learn and understand the decision-making process and not to criticise or debate the actual decision. World Rugby conducts this process after every match to evaluate the referees and the application of the laws. However, this is conducted confidentially. Conceivably, a version of this process can be held on a public platform like X.

A unique strength of this study is that it assessed the social media response, a proxy for culture, to a new player welfare initiative implemented just before a single international tournament. With that said, the sentiment analysis approach used in this study was the manual classification of posts, which can be considered a strength and a limitation. Manually classifying posts can be considered a limitation because it is exposed to subjectivity. Manually classifying posts however can also be considered a strength as it allows for the recognition of nuance and specificity within the text compared with automated sentiment analysis software, which is typically used in consumer research.36 Our analyses were also limited to polarised categories. While this is the basic form of sentiment analysis, future analyses should go a step further and identify themes as to why the public ‘disagreed’ with a referee’s decision. The study was also limited to users of one social media platform and English-only posts containing the hashtag #RWC2019. As such, caution should be applied when generalising these findings. Also, while the filters were applied in consideration of the magnitude of posts on X and to reduce the uncertainty in what the content of the post relates to, we acknowledge that this filtering may have excluded some posts, for example, a tackle-related post without #RWC2019.

The study also represents a line of work that future sports injury prevention studies can build off from to evaluate the culture around a new safety initiative and/or policy. The study approach can also be used to study the evolution of safety initiatives. For example, notable decisions by World Rugby to remove head impacts from the game began in 2016 and evolved over the last 7 years, specifically at the elite level. Therefore, sentiment analysis of elite club competitions from 2016 to the present will provide an extended study period to determine whether rugby’s tackle safety culture has shifted. Furthermore, detailed video analysis of the tackles by independent referees and analysts, in combination with the sentiment analysis, could provide further insights into tackle safety.