IT seems World Rugby has woken up to the fact that their increasing interference with tackle laws and other elements of the game have led to a situation that means many games are now not fair competitions with players being sent off, when previously the worst that happened was a penalty.
This has resulted in fewer fans and players despite World Rugby looking to ‘enhance’ both fan and player experience.
In order to counter the fact that referees have no choice but to send players off under current laws with the failure of the upgraded yellow card system, which appears to be unable to reduce the loss of players from the pitch, World Rugby have decided to allow a replacement to be brought on after 20 minutes after a player has been red carded.
As much as I applaud World Rugby’s efforts, I can’t help thinking it’s to little too late simply because you could end up with an unfair situation. Imagine a situation where one team has a player or two sent off in the first half and replaces them, rather like having substitutes, while their opposition lose two players in the middle of the second half and cannot replace them because the match ends.
Then there is the element of targeting players by sacrificing one of your players to take out a playmaker for the opposition. World Rugby have got it wrong and should revisit the allowance of rush and blitz defence to reduce the yellow and red cards.
