The South African referee held up a red card to Angus Ta’avao, as the replacement All Black prop was helped from the field after a head clash in which he came off second-best.
It was the low point of a farcical period of Saturday’s test at Forsyth Barr Stadium.
Peyper essentially admitted that much, initially remarking that Ta’avao’s collision with Ireland centre Garry Ringrose looked accidental.
However, the laws of the game do not take that into account.
‘‘Unfortunately, I’m going to have to give him a red card,’’ the referee told All Black captain Sam Cane after a TMO review.
Perhaps even more unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident.
It was not Peyper’s fault — he made the right decision by the laws, just as he did with the Leicester Fainga’anuku yellow card 15 minutes earlier.
The laws he was required to officiate by, though, have long needed a re-think.
That the first half took nearly an hour, as the officials reviewed various acts of ‘‘foul play’’, was bad enough.
The cards essentially ruled the game out as a spectacle, the All Blacks left to defend against an Ireland team that struggled to use its advantage.
That is not to say Ireland did not deserve its 23-12 win.
This is not a case of debating the result.
Saturday night promised to be the most thrilling spectacle Dunedin has hosted since before the pandemic.
It ended up disintegrating into what was roundly labelled a ‘‘shambolic’’ display.
There is a lot killing rugby as a product at the moment.
An overly structured game, dominated by lineout drives and very little imagination, has turned it into a bore, compared to where it was 20 years ago.
But the fickle nature in which cards are given is having a similar impact.
They have far too big an impact on a game — both in terms of the outcome and turning it into a dour contest.
That is not to say they do not have their place.
But too often these days, these cards are coming as a product of accidental collisions.
They are too much of a lottery and you go into any given game knowing it could be decided, one way or the other, by an unlucky card.
This is rugby. It is a contact sport and the game moves quickly.
In many cases, such as Ta’avao’s, the contact is reactionary. It happens so quickly that the tackler adjusting their height is impractical and far too simplistic of a solution.
Further to that, it picks and chooses when to protect the head.
Why is a case such as Ta’avao’s a red card, when it is perfectly legal for a ball carrier to drop his shoulder into the head of a tackler?
Concussion does not discern between whether you had the ball or not.
The intent of the cards is to protect the head.
But consequences only really negate future behaviour when it is intentional, such as a cynical infringement on the line.
It is unlikely to prevent future accidents.
They will keep happening. And perhaps World Rugby needs to accept that.
It should not be all on the governing body, either.
There is enough awareness around the risks of concussion now.
Players need to take some personal responsibility around choosing to play the game.
If they do not like it, no-one is forcing them to play.
They can find a job doing something else.
Besides, the only reason professional sport exists is because people want to watch it.
Lose your crowd and your television audience, and you lose your capacity to operate.
Giving people a game they want to watch is key to that.
And no-one wants to see another game like that one last Saturday.
