Rugby’s decision-makers will decide this week whether to permanently and universally adopt the 20-minute red card rule, in a vote that will not only potentially reshape the game but rebalance the power dynamic between the two hemispheres.
The Southern Hemisphere nations – particular New Zealand and Australia – haveadvocated for several years now that rugby needs to reconfigure the sanctions attached to red cards.
It has become a buzz topic in the last five years because of tougher protocols being applied when there is any kind of collision that results in contact to a player’s head.
Whereby red cards were once rare and only shown for the most egregious foul play, they have become relatively commonplace now given the speed and intensity at which professional athletes play, and the volume of collisions that are now part and parcel of the elite game.
New Zealand has argued – long before All Blacks captain Sam Cane was sent off in the 2023 World Cup final – that high-profile games are disproportionately, negatively impacted by red cards.
Rugby struggles to produce a meaningful contest when one team is reduced to 14 players and the point New Zealand has consistently tried to make is that the fans are ultimately the ones paying the highest price when a player is sent off.
There’s also been too many occasions when players have been sent off due to split-second decision-making or being a fraction slow to adjust, and the punishment of a red card feels excessively punitive for the nature of the crime.
Playing with 14 is a fair enough price for someone being an idiot and committing an act of lunacy, but it’s tough when a 130kg prop simply couldn’t alter the laws of physics to get low enough quickly enough.
New Zealand’s push has been to increase the sanctions post-game for a red card – make it more punitive on the individual, rather than their teammates and fans.
Super Rugby and the Rugby Championship have operated with the 20-minute red card since 2021, but it’s an experimental law that has not been embraced in the Northern Hemisphere.
Initially when there was talk of looking to universally adopt the 20-minute red card, the north was resistant on the basis they felt that it would potentially encourage teams to deliberately target an opposition key player with foul play.
Get a big lug in the forwards to smack the opposition first-five and both would be removed from action – but the former could be replaced after 20 minutes.
The argument was weirdly paranoid and almost impossible to see as likely.
It was also disrespectful to the morality and ethics that international players carry into the contest.
But if NZR chief executive Mark Robinson is to be believed, attitudes have shifted in the last 18 months.
The game is under as much financial duress up north as it is in the south, and so executives have become more receptive to the concept that they are in the entertainment business and that red cards are potentially a barrier to putting bums on seats and growing audiences.
As much as there is an obligation to keep players safe, so too is there a duty to ensure fans get what they pay for, and there may be a growing acceptance among the key power brokers that they don’t currently have that balance right.
The French, who have come out already to say they are not in favour of change, believe that the current deterrent plays an active role in policing behaviours and keeping player safe.
They also say the perception that red cards distort outcomes is exaggerated.
Wayne Barnes show a red card to Sam Cane. Photo / Photosport
According to their statistical findings, in the 160 tests played between tier one nations since 2021, the team with the numerical advantage only wins 60 per cent of the time.
But those numbers need to be examined a little harder, because the macro detail doesn’t tell the most accurate story.
In the last three years, there have been 12 Six Nations fixtures in which a red card was shown, with the team reduced to 14 players losing seven of those games, winning four, with one drawn.
But two of the wins came when the red card was shown with less than 10 minutes remaining.
One of the wins came in a game when both teams were shown a red card within five minutes of each other, while another was Ireland losing Bundee Aki after 64 minutes when they were already 30 points ahead of Italy.
At the last World Cup, there were eight games in which a red card was shown and twice the affected team won – that was New Zealand beating Namibia after Ethan de Groot was sent off in the last 10 minutes and England beating Argentina after Tom Curry was removed in the first minute.
Also, it can’t be ignored that the last two World Cup finals saw red cards shown and while they both went down to the wire, it is possible that the outcome in both would have been reversed if the 20-minute rule had applied.
A bigger question still is whether rugby is wise to allow its showpiece events to generate controversy around red cards and endless discussion about the impact they may or may not have had on the outcome.
The figures, contrary to the French interpretation, show what everyone believes to be true – that teams can cope with a numerical disadvantage for 10 minutes, maybe 20 and in some case possibly even 30, but rarely has a team ever won a high-profile tier one fixture if they have had a player sent off in the first half.
It’s not just that the outcome skews in favour of the team with 15 players, but typically the disadvantaged team changes their tactical approach to take less risks – to slow things down, kick penalties and effectively try to frustrate their opponent.
All the evidence supports adopting the 20-minute rule, and the Southern Hemisphere Sanzaar alliance is the driving influence in trying to make the change.
But will it happen? Will their Six Nations colleagues vote for something the south has pushed and so desperately wants?
Or will it prove that once again, the north have played the south – hinted and insinuated they are keen to make a positive change that helps fans, while secretly knowing they will resist adopting the 20-minute red card rule because they fear, irrationally, it will really benefit the All Blacks.
