The 20-minute red card can work – but not alongside TMO bunker

This week, World Rugby’s Council will assemble in Dublin for a series of crunch meetings and votes which will shape rugby’s short – and potentially long – term future.

At the top of the agenda is a decision about who will replace outgoing Sir Bill Beaumont as the governing body’s chair (Telegraph Sport’s understanding is that, if bookmakers were to offer odds, Brett Robinson would be slightly ahead of Abdelatif Benazzi) but there will also be balloting around the laws package, which is being trialled this autumn. Within that package, there are 20-minute red cards, a 60-second shot clock for conversions and penalties, a 30-second countdown for scrums and line-outs – and referees announcing their decisions to the in-stadium crowd over the tannoy.

As I wrote in these pages last week, the referee delivering a sporting soliloquy was a magnificent “innovation” at Twickenham against New Zealand – innovation in quotes because it was pinched from the NFL – but there have been times since when the technology has not matched the success of the initiative. Still, it is worth sticking with. As is the reduced shot clock for kicks at goal and, in theory, for scrums and line-outs (although there has not been much evidence of this latter clock actually being used of late).

But, for 20-minute red cards, the jury remains out. Not the implementation nor the ideology – perhaps their presence is necessary for the game to prosper – but as things stand rugby’s on-field disciplinary systems and processes are too confusing, with a lack of accountability for the decision-making process. France remain the only public dissenters to the concept, which is expected to be passed this week, but this package of laws should not be rushed and does require scrutiny.

Let’s start with the perplexing element first. There is currently a 10-minute yellow card, a 20-minute red card, and a full red card available to referees. On top of that, there are two unnamed officials in an off-site bunker, adjudicating on acts of foul play which meet a “yellow-card threshold”, deciphering whether they require escalation to a red. In the words of MasterChef’s John Torode, when a contestant simply cannot grasp the concept of less being more on a plate: “There is too much going on here.”

Glancing at TNT Sports’ scoreboard during Wales’s historic loss to Fiji, after a medley of offences which required further examination in the bunker, felt more like an application for Mensa than watching a rugby match. The casual viewer or even the layman might have assumed that TNT’s scoreboard was sponsored by McDonald’s rather than attempting to reflect what was happening on the field.

It was events in Cardiff that also highlighted the second part of the clunkiness, which is that 20-minute red cards were introduced for “technical offences”; those which historically have resulted in players making accidental yet clumsy contact with an attacking player’s head, usually with force, but which could be explained by the fast-paced nature of the sport.

In almost decapitating Cameron Winnett, there was nothing accidental about Semi Radradra’s tackle, which was given the 20-minute treatment, at the Principality Stadium on Sunday.

Ok, it was not quite an “act of thuggery”, to use another term from the law-makers’ glossary, but is one of the most powerful players in the planet shunting his shoulder into another’s face at full tilt, straight on, with no attempt to wrap, truly a “technical” offence. Some commentators have spoken about the mitigation in Winnett’s late, innocuous dip but arguably if the young full-back had dipped more the outcome would have been worse. It is this sort of tackle which surely still requires a straight red card.

So, why is the bunker necessary? It is adding an extra layer of disciplinary bureaucracy and allowing anonymous decisions to be made with zero accountability. Perhaps, the trade-off with the 20-minute red card is that the bunker needs to go. The reasons for its introduction was to allow a tackle, where millimetres can separate a legal challenge from an illegal one, to be examined in greater detail away from the pitch, so that referees do not need to waste time deliberating these decisions on the field. Part of that comes down to referees having to squint at a giant, pixelated screen, so why not remove the bunker and introduce a VAR-style small screen at the side of the pitch, so that the referees can make their own decisions from reviews shown in crystal-clear high definition?

At Murrayfield on Sunday, for Scott Cummings’ 20-minute dismissal, the process was just as bewildering.

Even if the correct decision was made – a debatable fact – then referees must remain the sole arbiter for contentious decisions, and the officiating group cannot be afraid of dishing out the top sanction to actions which are not classed as “acts of thuggery”. Otherwise, what happens in Dublin this week is futile; rugby’s arcane processes will continue to struggle in attracting new fans to the sport.