A new white card will be introduced to this year’s Super Rugby referee’s wallet, and the referees themselves are sure that this will take unnecessary pressure off them.
The white card will be used by officials to refer potential incidents of foul play to a citing commissioner, in the instance that the on-field official is unsure of the incident or unsure of the player.
This will not necessarily reduce the amount of yellow or red cards, but should a player complain to an official, this matter can then be investigated after the game. This process is letting the public know that an incident is in fact being referred to the citing commissioner.
We will have to wait and see how the citing process is handled, as there have been some serious mishaps in the past. We can take comfort from the fact that something is being done about this.
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My only concern is how many points my Fantasy League player will cost me if he gets a new white card?
Seriously though..
Does this mean the citing commissioner can only get involved when a white card is shown?
Or will the citing officer still watch the game and put his recommendations through?
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 1) : LOL… let’s just say the kind folks at SANZAR didn’t announce this early enough for us to incorporate it into the scoring mechanism 🙂
@robdylan (Comment 3) :
Haha.. I don’t think it matters anyway.. the white card will investigate an incident, not necessarily a player.
The concern is the incorporation of an off-field yellow card, which will go on the player’s record (three yellows gets you a ban). Not sure how this will be monitored and reported though?
I’m worried that refs without balls will just pull out white cards willy nilly, just like almost every try now gets reffered to the TMO. 🙁
I think the SA players will still get a lot of white cards against them! Doesn’t this open the door for the referee to get “TOO INVOLVED” with petty complaints from the players?
@KSA Shark © (Comment 5) :
Apparently this will be looked at in their performance reviews, so any petty reversals will reflect negatively on them!