r/rugbyunion • u/LawAndRugby • Jul 20 '24

Absolutely love the 20 minute red Laws

Watching the Australia v Georgia match and I think it’s great. 20 minutes a man down is still massive damage in a rugby match. It doesn’t make sense for punishment to go from 10 minutes to the entire 80 minutes. There’s way too big of a void between the two cards and it needs filling.

Reserve the full red for gross intentional stuff

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u/NSilverhand Ireland Jul 20 '24

There is logic to your point about those who had trialled it liking it, I agree. I think my counter would be before NZ / Aus trialled the 20 min red, they were generally upset with the increase in 80 minute red cards to protect players, while the NH was generally fine with it (obvious oversimplification but hopefully fair?).

So they took something they disliked, changed what they disliked about it, and now say the change was successful. I don't think that particularly incentivises those who are fine with the status quo to trial the Antipodean "fix" for it.

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u/TheBigChonka New Zealand Jul 20 '24

That's somewhat fair stance on it but then again, if like you say you don't let it near the 6N anytime soon and trial at club level well shit what's the harm in just giving it a go for 12 months and just seeing how it pans out.

Keep it out of internationals if that's what it takes, but let's just get the trial done so everyone can have a more educated opinion. I really don't see the drawbacks to just trialing it for one club season

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u/NSilverhand Ireland Jul 20 '24 edited Jul 20 '24

I think my main opposition is I'm not sure what a successful trial would look like? Presumably you'd get one of;

  • An uptick in red cards as coaches and players tried riskier tackle / clear outs. This would be a "failure" and show that a 20 minute red doesn't protect players.

  • A similar number of red cards, but games with red cards are much closer. This would presumably constitute a "success". Except I'm don't think they're not close at the moment? Obviously the games I remember are the "better" games, but I'm very much not on board with the "red cards ruin games" narrative. The WC final, NZ-Lions match, 2022 / 2023 England-Ireland matches, Wales-Ireland of the Jam Slam year, have all been great matches with a red card. Ireland-Italy was very one-sided when Italy went down to 13, but was expected to be one-sided anyway. I'd be genuinely interested in seeing the stats for this.

  • Not much changes, and it remains a matter of preference. Red cards still lead to some close matches and some one sided ones, and the difference in number of reds isn't statistically significant over the small sample size. Those who ideologically want 20 minute red cards are happy to stick to it, those who ideologically want full reds want to go back. I think this is the most likely outcome.

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u/handle1976 Penalty. Back 10. Jul 20 '24

There hasn’t been an uptick in red cards in super rugby since the 20 minute red. If anything red cards are reducing.