Ian Black won't play much football this season. http://www.shropshirelive.com/2016/...-new-disciplinary-rules/#.V4-CpeRZKSA.twitter Offences which could earn a player a yellow card include but are not restricted to: visibly disrespectful to any match officials, an aggressive response to decisions, confronting officials face to face, running towards an official to contest a decision, offensive, insulting or abusive language and/or gestures towards match officials, physical contact with any match official in a non aggressive manner, a yellow card for at least one player when two or more from a team surround a match official. Offences which could earn a player a red card include but are not restricted to: If a player confronts a match officials and uses offensive, insulting or abusive language and/or gestures towards them, physical contacts with match officials in an aggressive or controversial manner.
The culture of disrespect to officials is too heavily ingrained in most players and actually encouraged by some managers. I suspect the refs will bottle this (directive or no directive) and we will be back to square one pretty soon.
I see no reason why it shouldn't go the other way. Once introduced effectively the players would soon learn. I have always firmly believed that the only person who should talk to the referee is the captain (and then maybe not). Love him or hate him, Clive Thomas (the martinet) would brook no one talking to him and if anyone ventured to do that he was summarily booked. His matches were so well disciplined that he didn't even have to pace out the ten yards from the position of a free kick. The players automatically went there for fear of a booking.
Let's just hope the referees commit to it. Let's hope some also sort out the tussling between players when a ball is in the air.
KDS - I agree that in an ideal world the rules should be able to be enforced better. It is just that society as a whole has much less respect for authority. I predict the first ref to send a couple of players off under this crackdown will be slaughtered by the pundits and the inconsistencies amongst different refs will be highlighted and the whole thing will go back to normal. I do not rate rugby much as a spectacle but have always been envious of the respect its players show to the referee. Lets face it - we in the crowd are part of the problem when we howl at any decision that goes against our team and try to intimidate officials.In general I think the refs of today do an impossible job really well.
Perhaps the sin bin ruling is something that could be considered? If there is a player arguing aggressively at a ref then a set time off of the pitch should be called for.
Yes - the sin bin could be useful. What I would really like to see is use of video replay for game-changing decisions.
