Discuss @David Flin 's latest article here
Two All Blacks being sent off in the first minute of a test in New Zealand? That would require an awfully brave referee. The sin bin for a yellow card was around, and my guess would be that the referee would choose that option.
My main thought on that wasn't necessarily the reaction of the NZRU (which I don't judge as likely to be much different), but on the reactions of the other national RU bodies & possible diplomatic pressure being brought to bear on the New Zealand Government itself to intervene.I don't know enough about the inner workings of NZ rugby organisations at the time to have a view on how they would have responded had O'Driscoll been badly injured. From the situation as it actually arose, they were very dismissive of any suggestion that there was any problem whatsoever, with the nadir being the claim that it was Mealama and Umagu who were the victims because people were saying bad things about them. The word "sook" was much in evidence.
My guess - and someone with better knowledge of the NZ side of things might well be better able to comment - is that if O'Driscoll did have his neck broken, NZ Rugby would have said words to the effect of: "It was an accident. These things happen. Maybe we need to look into what can be done to make sure it doesn't happen in the future, but it certainly wasn't our fault in any way that it happened."