Durban - Thankfully, sense has prevailed and the 20-minute Red Card law will return for the imminent Rugby Championship, meaning a player sent off can be replaced after 20 minutes of actual game time has elapsed.
This means that games featuring red cards still have a chance to be reasonably fair contests, especially if a player is sent off early in a game.
There have been a number of cases recently where a player is sent off for accidental head contact in a tackle, with the referees applying the letter of the law, but it means the accidental offender’s team is punished for the remainder of the match.
In the All Blacks’ recent second Test defeat to Ireland, their prop Angus Ta’avao was sent off in the first half for this type of offence and the New Zealanders played three-quarters of the game with 14 against 15.
The 20-minute red card was trialed throughout Super Rugby competitions in 2020, 2021 and 2022, as well as the Rugby Championship in 2021, and all four SANZAAR National Unions fully support its continuation.
SANZAAR CEO Brendan Morris said: “This is a great decision for The Rugby Championship and follows on from its application in Super Rugby. All the SANZAAR national unions – Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa – are fully behind the extension of the red-card law trail. As a group we firmly believe the integrity of international matches is very important and that wherever possible matches must be a contest of fifteen versus fifteen.
“Within the context of the games' laws, SANZAAR believes that a 20-minute Red Card allows for a significant deterrent to deliberate acts of foul play, while it also protects the contest of fifteen on fifteen, which is what our unions, broadcasters and fans are telling us is important.
“SANZAAR stands alongside World Rugby’s important work on managing foul play and player welfare and will conduct a formal research project across the 2022 TRC period with all comparative findings to be shared with World Rugby at the end of the season. The aim is to gather the necessary information that allows the 20-minute red card trial to be accepted into the full laws of the game in the future.
“This season we are very excited to be bringing international rugby back to fans across all of our home territories for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic with an innovative new mini-tours format as we are committed to exploring ways to continually improve the competition,” added Morris.
Red Card Law Trial:
If a player is red-carded he may be replaced after 20 minutes by another player. The 20 minutes from when a player is red-carded to when they may be replaced is measured as “game time”. This follows the same measurement of time already in place for a yellow-carded player in the sin bin (sin bin clock is stopped when the game clock is stopped).
A player receives a yellow card and is sin-binned for 10 minutes. If the same player, then returns to the field after serving their 10 minutes suspension and subsequently receives a second yellow card, which equates to an automatic red card. After a further 20 minutes the red carded player can be replaced.
A player who has been tactically replaced can return to the field to replace a red-carded player. Note if a team has unused replacements (eg #23) still sitting on the bench it does not have to use them to replace a red-carded player before the use of players who have already been substituted tactically (eg #12).
Any red-carded player cannot return to the field under any circumstance.