Wales assistant coach Robin McBryde says players are aware of the heavy bans on offer for dangerous tackles and players simply have to be "bang on the money" with every tackling attempt to ensure they avoid suspension strife.
Australia has been the first team to feel some suspension pain in the wake of World Rugby’s crackdown on high tackles with winger Reece Hodge suspended for three weeks for his hit on Fijian flanker Peceli Yato.
Under new World Rugby protocols introduced in July, if a player is found to have made contact with the head, that is automatically considered a mid-range offence with a mandatory starting suspension point of six weeks with reductions occurring for clean records and good conduct.
While the Wallabies have been somewhat of the guinea pig in this tournament, they won’t be the last team put under the judicial microscope in this tournament.
The day after Hodge was cited, two more players, Samoan duo Rey Lee-Lo and Motu Matu’u, have been cited for dangerous tackles against Russia and are yet to have their cases heard.
McBryde said players were conscious of the danger of a potential six-week suspension in high tackle situations but staying away from that isn’t as easy as it might seem.
“They're aware of the sanctions and the protocols to reach the decisions, it's a tough one isn't it?,” he said.
"Things happen in a split second, the aggressive nature, the collision dominance that is spoken about both in attack and defence, it just means you've really got to be bang on the money.
"(That's) easier said than done when the fatigue has set in and the conditions are humid etc, and players are tired and that's when generally errors are made.
"Everybody's more than aware of the sanctios that could happen agaisnt them and hopefully we won't see too many of them during the World Cup."
McBryde said World Rugby had been clear about their intention to "clamp down" on certain parts of the game in Japan.
"The communication between ourselves and World Rugby has been excellent over the course of the last few days after the Georgia game," he said.
"The communication's a two-way thing. It's really healthy and we know what we need to work on and the referees are part of that as well.
"It's a massive role to play. Everybody's more than aware of the clampdowns or the emphasis that have been put on certain rules more than others."
Wales second rower Jake Ball said players simply had to “avoid” getting themselves in those situations, saying he felt the Hodge decision was the correct call.
“For me looking at that hit, it probably was the right decision, it probably was a red card offence,” he said.
“You can't really get away with it now, no arms and any contact with the head and that's the way things are going to go.
“As a player, now all we can do is try and avoid that situation really and sometimes it's not easy.
“Things happen very quickly in the game and you just have to do what you can do."
Ball said there hadn't been much discussion in the Wales group about the cards handed out in the World Cup so far.
“It probably has passed us by a little bit," he said.
"Probably not a huge amount of time between the next game and to be honest a lot of it has just been on getting ourselves ready for the Australia game."
The Wallabies take on Wales on Sunday September 29 at Tokyo Stadium, kicking off at 4:45pm local, 5;45pm AEST, LIVE on Foxtel, Network Ten and via RUGBY.com.au RADIO, Rugby Xplorer and Amazon Alexa.
