World Rugby: 20-minute red card rule may be trialled globally

World Rugby will consider integrating the 20-minute red card law into more tournaments worldwide to generate more data to determine its viability.

The law allows a team to replace a red carded player after 20 minutes and is currently being trialled in Super Rugby Pacific.

The basis of the law is to find a balance between player welfare and maintaining a contest throughout the game.

England second-row Charlie Ewels was sent off after just 82 seconds against Ireland in the Six Nations, effectively determining the outcome of the match.

The trial in Super Rugby has proved inconclusive thus far, and World Rugby are yet to decide whether the law will still be enough of a deterrent to force the improvement of tackle technique.

Need more data

“That’s been discussed before and will be discussed again,” World Rugby chief executive Alan Gilpin told the Daily Telegraph.

“It would be great if more competitions, even in a closed trial, would use it because that would give us more of an overview of the effect it would have on the game.

“We need to see more of the data to see whether that strikes the balance between safety and spectacle better.

“There is more work to do to analyse that and the concern is, if a team goes back to 15 players, is that enough of a deterrent to drive that behavioural change.

“We would like to see it trialled more widely before drawing any conclusions.”

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