Quartet help Cardiff pull off unlikely double

Peter Jackson discovers which clubs and players come out best and worst when it comes to red and yellow cards

Despite winning just four matches all season and losing four times as many more, Cardiff somehow stumbled into a double without precedent in European rugby.

There are doubles to justify tickertape parades and then there is this one, assembled so far under the radar that neither the club nor their fans have the faintest clue, until now. They won’t know whether to laugh or cry over something largely caused by a series of mishaps.

Of the 40 contenders on the starting grid for Europe’s three major leagues, only one finished top of the two card tables nobody bothers to publish except The Rugby Paper: one for the most reds, the other for the fewest yellows.

Nobody had more of the former and less of the latter than a club whose nickname continues to do almost as much for immodesty as Stormy Daniels. Cardiff’s self-promotion as The Greatest dates back to the early 1950s when they had Lions galore and a following vast enough to fill the Arms Park to its 48,000-limit for a club match against Newport.

Over the course of a season marked by a sharp decline in red cards, Cardiff still accumulated a quartet of their own, as doled out to Ciaran Parker in their first match, Seb Davies in their last with Rey Lee-Lo and Ellis Jenkins in between.

Castres, alone of the other 39 contenders, were dealt as many reds, accumulated in their case over 31 matches. Cardiff accumulated theirs over 22 at what could be called a strike rate of one red in every five-and-a-half matches compared to Castres’ infinitely more disciplined of one in every eight.

On the other hand, when they weren’t being dealt reds, they played theirs smartly enough to avoid the sin-bin on all but eight occasions. Nobody else gave it a wider berth with only Munster matching Cardiff’s commendably thin pack of yellows.

Analysis of figures for all competitive club matches, domestic and European, show a 40 per cent drop in red cards. Sendings-off in the English Premiership were more than halved, from 26 in 2022-23 to 11 last season, a drop which cannot be dismissed as an obvious consequence of a competition emasculated by the collapse of Wasps, Worcester Warriors and London Irish.

While marching orders in the Top 14 fell from 34 to 19, those in the United Rugby Championship remained identical to the previous season at 17 after Munster’s Alex Nankivell saw red in yesterday’s semi-final.

More clubs avoided a single red than in recent seasons: four from the Premiership (Gloucester, Harlequins, Newcastle, Sale), five from the URC (Zebre, Ulster, Leinster, Connacht, Glasgow) and four from the Top 14 (Bayonne, Bordeaux, Pau, Perpignan).

Of those 13, three were hit by a retrospective red in respect of players cited for foul play: Gloucester wing Jonny May, Glasgow flyhalf Duncan Weir, Connacht wing Byron Ralston, Perpignan prop Sacha Lotrain and Pau full-back Jack Maddocks.

Lighter suspensions of one week for three yellow cards were also imposed on a two of the aforementioned Top 14 contingent: Bayonne (Facundo Bosch), Bordeaux (Kane Douglas).

The totting-up process includes all international matches from the start of August last year to the end of the Six Nations. Of the 15 players sent off in 81 Test matches over that period, England and New Zealand accounted for 40 per cent.

Eight dismissals during the 48-match World Cup equalled the record number for the tournament set in Japan four years earlier. They included Billy Vunipola, sent off for club and country in the same season, a double also endured by France lock Paul Willemse and his team-mate Jonathan Danty.

Most individual cards during the season:

6 – G Maro Itoje, left (Saracens)
5 – Paul Willemse (Montpellier & France), Hugo Fabregue (Oyonnax)
4 – Jonathan Danty (La Rochelle & France), Jack Maddocks (Lyon)
3 –  Mike Brown (Leicester Tigers) Danny Care (Harlequins), Peter O’Mahony (Ireland), Andrea Cocagi (Castres), Pierre Popelin (Castres), Charlie Cassang (Oyonnax), Baptiste Pesenti (Stade Francais), Jeremy Ward (Stade Francais), Duhan van der Merwe (Edinburgh & Scotland), Peceli Yato (Clermont), Jack Clement (Gloucester), Facundo Bosch (Bayonne), Danilo Fischetti (Zebre & Italy), Bryan Byrne (Newcastle Falcons), Romain Taofifenua (Lyon & France), So’otala Fa’aso’o (Perpignan), Sami Radradra (Lyon & Fiji), Piula Fa’asalele (Perpignan)

Most individual red cards:

2 – Billy Vunipola (Saracens & England), Jonathan Danty, Paul Willemse

Most individual yellow cards:

6 – Maro Itoje
5 – Hugo Fabregue
4 – Jack Maddocks

Most team red cards in Test matches (July 2023-Mar 2024)

3 – England (Owen Farrell, Billy Vunipola, below, Tom Curry), New Zealand (Ethan de Groot, Scott Barrett, Sam Cane)
2 – France (Paul Willemse, Jonathan Danty), Namibia (Johan Deysel, Desiderius Sethie)

Most team red cards during the club season:

4 – Cardiff (22 matches), Castres Olympique (31)
3 – Leicester Tigers (24), Lions (24), Benetton (24), Sharks (26), La Rochelle (32)
2 – Dragons (22), Exeter Chiefs (24), Saracens (24), Bulls (24), Bath (25), Toulon (30), Montpellier (31), Racing (31), Toulouse (34)

Most yellow cards:

31 – Oyonnax (30 matches)
26 – Stade Francais (30), Perpignan (30)
23 – Castres Olympique (31), La Rochelle (32)
22 – Lyon (31)
21 – Racing (31)
19 – Bayonne (31)
17 – Newcastle Falcons (22), Harlequins (25)

Fewest yellow cards:

8 – Munster (24), Cardiff (22)
9 – Lions (24), Benetton (24)
10 – Stormers (22), Connacht (24)
11 – Zebre (23), Dragons (22)
12 – Leinster (27), Ulster (25), Sale Sharks (24), Bristol Bears (22)

Cleanest record over the season (no reds, no proven citings, no suspensions for repeat offenders):

Zebre (11 yellows, 23 matches)
Sale Sharks (12 yellows, 24 matches)
Ulster (12 yellows, 25 matches).

Most reds over the last four seasons:

13 – Castres Olympique (122 matches), Stade Francais (122), Toulouse (137), *London Irish (85)
11 – **Brive (88)
10 – Saracens (124)
9 – Montpellier (129), Leicester Tigers (114), Exeter Chiefs (114), Scarlets (95), Cardiff (92)

*Three Premiership seasons before closure. **Three Top 14 seasons before relegation.

Fewest over the last four seasons:

1 – Bayonne (95 matches)
2 – Lyon (127), Ospreys (95)
3 – Leinster (111), Munster (102), Glasgow (99)
4 – Harlequins (112), Bristol Bears (108), Ulster (103), Edinburgh (94)

Most cards in one match 2023-24:

6 – Castres v Racing (all yellow, March 23, 2024)
5 – Oyonnax v Castres (3 red, 2 yellow, April 27, 2024)
4 – Montpellier v Ulster (1 red, 3 yellow, April 7, 2024)

Most cards in an international:

4 – South Africa v New Zealand (1 red, 3 yellow, Oct 28, 2023)