Nigel Owens’ proposal which will ‘address’ 20-minute red cards and could end debate for good

Nigel Owens hopes the 20-minute red card idea is finally consigned to the dustbin after French rugby spoke out about the law trial earlier this week.

Southern hemisphere sides have very much tried to promote the idea, believing that dismissals for ‘accidental’ head contact to be unfair punishment.

It has been used in both the Rugby Championship and Super Rugby, with Australia and New Zealand big fans of the law.

However, critics claim that it could compromise player safety, with those in the northern hemisphere mostly against the proposal.

‘Simple as that’

“As far as the 20-minute red card idea is concerned, I’m not a fan. As (former Test referee) Mathieu (Raynal) has said, I don’t believe it will really solve any of the problems that we have in the game at the moment,” Owens wrote in his WalesOnline column.

“If someone on the pitch has committed a red card offence, they should be given a red card that sees them sin-binned for the rest of the game. Simple as that.”

Owens was writing after the French Rugby Federation (FFR) came up with a number of proposed law amendments which they intend to present to World Rugby.

Key on the agenda was speeding up of the game, including shot clocks at scrums, having time off when conversions are being taken and reducing the amount of replacements.

The FFR also confirmed that their stance on 20-minute red cards remains unchanged, despite continuing pressure from the southern hemisphere.

Owens agrees with the view from France, but does suggest that the law should be changed to stop players being sent off for what he sees as “accidental” incidents.

That could therefore appease the southern hemisphere giants and finally end the controversial law.

“Again, more attention needs to be paid to the actual issues that have brought us to the discussion of the 20-minute red card,” the former Test referee wrote.

“The experiment was born out of players being ‘harshly’ sent off for offences that, by the letter of the law, were red card worthy.

“What needs to be addressed is making sure that a sending off clearly is a sending off, and cannot possibly be seen as ‘harsh’ or ‘unlucky’ but an act of thuggery or total recklessness. That’s how it used to be and that’s how it should always be.

“The problem at the moment is that players are being sent off for things like accidental head collisions, which are not acts of thuggery or recklessness, but simply rugby collisions just accidentally gone wrong.

“They should not be seen as red card offences in the first place – so do we need to change the laws instead? I think so.”

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Rugby Championship

The 20-minute red card was used in the recent Rugby Championship but with a stipulation that deliberate actions with a high level of danger would see them removed for the rest of the match.

There was only one red card in the tournament and that came in the second half of the final match as Pablo Matera was dismissed for Argentina against South Africa.

“I’m against the 20-minute red card, because if you’ve been sent off, you’ve done something reckless that has put another player at great risk, or you’ve committed an act of thuggery. A red card means you deserve to be off the pitch, so I don’t see why there should be a middle ground,” Owens added.

“In my view, having a 20-minute red card is a cop-out. It’s simply papering over the cracks, when the discussion that really needs to be had is defining exactly what constitutes a red card offence and what doesn’t. That would be far more constructive for the game of rugby.

“Plus, we didn’t see any real changes in player behaviour when it was trialled this summer, including at the Rugby Championship. There is still a lot of careless, reckless conduct out there, so I don’t know if introducing these new cards has made much of a difference anyway.”

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