The new "White Card" in Rugby

Perhaps not international related...yet but this seems like an interesting move from the SUPER 15

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10785383

Referees who suspect foul play but cannot identify a culprit or pinpoint the incident will use a white card to alert a citing commissioner to scan the footage.

How will this affect games? What sort of foul play will they be looking for?

Seems a bit pointless really. Doesn't mean anything on the pitch and could be achieved off it with any other means (4th official noting it down, or the TMO)

Having thought about it, I'm fairly certain a lot of incidents are caught by the officials despite the referee missing them in the game as well

Does in mean,

"I surrender!"

As in, "I surrender all responsiblity to make a decision at the time and so I'm going to let someone else handle the flak when it's too late to make any difference"?

Or

The "Pearson" Card for short?

Noooooooo...... !!!!

Not another thing for everyone to argue about

Will it really make much of a difference? If the ref sees something and isn't sure who committed the act, he just puts it in his report so the citing commisioner can look at it, does he not?

Slarti, glad you're back in the land of the living again. Nice post yesterday btw, and well done Wales.

This is a terrible idea. All we will get is referees copping out and not make a decision as to whether a yellow or red card should be given. We see it in rugby league all the time, the "on report" call used in RL has done nothing but produce referees who are gutless!

hate the idea, seen it in RL and it's basically used as a cop-out. We already have too many refs (cough cough Mr Pearson) using the sin-bin option as a cop-out from sending players off, and this would be even worse IMO.

Citing officials already look into things a ref may have missed or not dealt with sufficiently during the game, so what exactly does this add to the mix? I mean what happens more often - player gets binned (or not even) during a match and then gets a ban after being cited OR player gets wrongly binned/sent off for foul play (case of mistaken identity/ref being conned by opposition play-acting, etc.)?

I suspect very much the former, and the "on report" system would only increase this.

Its what the. Citeing commission should be doing already. All it does is let the players and fans know that something is being done and that if one team or player is being naughty reminds them they may get told off for it...but it also offers the ref a cop out. What it shouldnt ever be used for is incidents that the ref did see. They still have to be strong and make calls even on borderline incidents like the ferris one. If not this will have a negative impact that far outweighs any benefit

Where possible, Sanzar wanted to use one citing commissioner and one judicial officer for the entire tournament with those officials due to be announced shortly.

Bruce Lawrence

Peters said television viewership across the New Zealand, Australian and South African audiences totalled 56 million last year, an advance on the 54 million who watched the series the previous year.

60% of that is probably South Africans

No wonder all the aussie kids are getting fat now

Afternoon folks
A quick scroll down shows that everyone is either opposed or see no merit in the "on report"/"whitecard" system being tried let alone introduced in rugby union.
I must say that I have for some time been all in infavour of this system being trialled, and am looking forward to the super xv trial and it possilbly being extended into the local domestic season later this year.
I see it raising the quality of the decision making of the referees in regard to instances of foul or dangerous play and even some reduction in the number of yellow/red cards and games being played between two teams of fifteen players.it takes the heat off the referees by giving them a bit of middle ground and not having to make unneccesarily punitive hasty decisions,and has been murmured of for some time now in this part of the World by those 'in front of the fence"
To those Northen hemisphere supporters who are vehemently opposed to the initiative,do not fret, as it will not concern Northern hemisphere rugby for at least a year and if its proven to be as bad as some above suggest then it wont be seen in the NH at all.
Some above also seem to see it as a process that is an alternative or in opposition to the role of the citing officer,this is somewhat inaccurate and it should be regarded as two processes operating in tandum to each other,although obvoiously one occurs during the game whilst one is post game.
Anything that makes it easier for the referees and raises the quality of their decision making in instances of foul,dangerous play should trialled and encouraged as much as possible.
Roll on next week..

The problem with this system is that it will cuase more contentious issues.

Imagine both teams commit a foul, but the one the referee actually sees is mild in comparison to the one he doesn't see.

So he sends the one team's player off for 10 minutes and the opposition scores 14 points in that time, yet the more serious foul committedd he doesn't but produces the white card. So the opposition player is only reported and cited after the match.

Imagine the stink that will create.

I think the ref should have one of those bankers/credit card wallets. Stop the game, dramatically take the dreaded wallet from his pocket, open it and let it theatrically unfold, and then histrionically go 'Hmmmmmmmmm..now which card colour shall it be????"

And people could vote into Simon Cowell with their preferences before the TMO tells the ref which one to choose.

Now that should be good family entertainment, even for families that don't like rugby....and it should also speed up the game no end

Thomond wrote:Will it really make much of a difference? If the ref sees something and isn't sure who committed the act, he just puts it in his report so the citing commisioner can look at it, does he not?

Exactly my thoughts.

Referees will produce "white cards" instead of dealing with the issue on field, in an analogy of the way they invariably call for the TMO rather than having the balls to just award a try, and in the same way that Nigel Owens insisted on calling the TMO for every single shot at goal in the RWC after referees were reminded that they could. In turn is will encourage more foul play, not only at strategic times in a game (i.e. 2 minutes left, who cares about a yellow card when you can save a try), but now we'll have "last game left in the tournament, who cares about going on report".

It's an awful idea for all of the reasons that everyone has already raised. Mostly it's awful because it comes from rugby league and that's a stupid game played by imbiciles and watched by the presumably labotomised.

If the citing commissioners were half decent we wouldn't need the referee to flag the issues in the first place.

miteyironpaw wrote:Referees will produce "white cards" instead of dealing with the issue on field, in an analogy of the way they invariably call for the TMO rather than having the balls to just award a try, and in the same way that Nigel Owens insisted on calling the TMO for every single shot at goal in the RWC after referees were reminded that they could. In turn is will encourage more foul play, not only at strategic times in a game (i.e. 2 minutes left, who cares about a yellow card when you can save a try), but now we'll have "last game left in the tournament, who cares about going on report".

It's an awful idea for all of the reasons that everyone has already raised. Mostly it's awful because it comes from rugby league and that's a stupid game played by imbiciles and watched by the presumably labotomised.

If the citing commissioners were half decent we wouldn't need the referee to flag the issues in the first place.

+1

and................... we all forget this at our leisure even though it's the main contention between fans with expensive TVs and the ref with a pair of below par legs and two dodgy eyes - that is to say, we all know in our hearts that we now see much more of what goes on in a game than the referee who refs the game.

The citing commissioners don't need him to point out the problems, they have a better view and even as the ref pulls out his 'white card' I'm sure there will be citing commissioners already rubbishing his concerns, having seen the incident three or four times in HD before he has time to replace the white card into his pocket.

Frankly it's the wrong way around. The TMO, or perhaps a dedicated foul play TMO should have an open mic link to the ref and be able to continuously make him aware of stuff going on around him. How useful would it be for him to know that a Welshman was spear tackling someone off the ball, and it was worthy of a RED card while he was focussing on keeping them entering the ruck correctly and keeping their hands out of the ruck?

miteyironpaw wrote:Frankly it's the wrong way around. The TMO, or perhaps a dedicated foul play TMO should have an open mic link to the ref and be able to continuously make him aware of stuff going on around him. How useful would it be for him to know that a Welshman was spear tackling someone off the ball, and it was worthy of a RED card while he was focussing on keeping them entering the ruck correctly and keeping their hands out of the ruck?