The greatest cheap shot of all time has officially been made
Cheap shots do not come much bigger than smashing into a player while they are blindfolded. Well, blindfolded might not exactly be accurate, but as close to being blindfolded as a player can be on a rugby pitch.
The moment came in the first half of Lyon’s Top 14 contest with Brive at the weekend at the Stade Gerland, where Brive had a lineout. After winning the lineout, Brive set up a maul with Colombian lock Andres Zafra at the back. However, just before breaking free from the maul, Zafra’s shirt was grabbed by opposite man Joel Kpoku. As Zafra worked his way out of the maul, his shirt was pulled over his head.
Now the lock was standing with the ball in his hands and his shirt over his head, in what is one of the strangest sights you will see on a pitch. Zafra was left running backwards trying to remove his shirt from his face, only to find opposing hooker Yanis Charcosset ready to smash him in the ribs just as his head popped out of his shirt.
Now this is probably a cheap shot as tackles do not come much easier than tackling someone that is unable to see where they are going at that moment in time, but it is not exactly dirty play as it was not Charcosset’s job to wait until Zafra had untangled himself. That is a debate over what exactly is a cheap shot and whether it is automatically dirty play raged on amongst philosophers for centuries and will continue to do so.
To be fair, this would have been an even greater cheap shot if Charcosset was actually the player that also pulled Zafra’s shirt over his head.
Zafra might have finished the match with about three ribs missing, but Brive came away 30-27 winners.
Take a look at the tackle:
#TOP14
Après la passe aveugle, Andrès Zafra innove avec le départ de maul aveugle 😂 @CABCLRUGBY pic.twitter.com/5staDm4XnY— TOP 14 Rugby (@top14rugby) January 3, 2023
