Laws - 16 men on a rugby team
The Sharks had 16 players on the field during their match against the Reds, and the Reds are up in arms.
It was not quite as dramatic as people make out – on for two minutes and 10 seconds. making “a crucial hit on a surging Chris Latham”, “making two key tackles”, Burden’s tackle on Latham stopping a potential Reds’ try which would have meant a bonus point.
At 67.14 the Reds have a scrum not far from their line. There is no sign of Burden. We do not become aware of him till 69.59. He came onto the field somewhere between those two times. In between a lot had happened.
The Sharks had scored a try which the TMO conformed and Rory Kockott converted. Burden played no part in that. Then the Reds kicked off to the left. There is still no sign of Burden.
The reds won the ball back and came to their right and Latham had the ball. That is when Burden comes into view. This is on the Grand Stand side, the side from which replacements enter the match.
Latham is tackled by Albert van den Berg and Brad Barritt, not Burden for there is a lot of defence about. Poutasi Luafutu of the Reds gets the ball and that is where Burden gets in on the action.
Prop Tendai Mtawarira of the Sharks is straight in front of Luafutu and tackles him while Burden grabs him from behind. Burden stays on his feet and gets the ball from Luafutu.
The referee calls out: “Leave it, 16.” Burden does not leave it. The referee then penalises Burden saying: “You’re not the tackler. You’ve got to go to ground.” In other words Burden had no right to play the ball from the side in which he played it.
That was at 70.16.
At this stage the referee’s assistant (aka touch judge) came onto the field with the message that the Sharks had 16 men. The referee’s assistant has an assistant – two in fact – to control the coming and going of players. They are referred to as Number 4 and Number 5. This assistant to the referee’s assistant had espied Burden’s intrusion and went to the referee’s assistant and told him that the Sharks had one too many.
The referee then counted heads as Johan Muller, the Sharks’ lock left the field.
The referee gave the penalty where he had given the penalty against Burden.
Was that right?
Law 3.2 TEAM WITH MORE THAN THE PERMITTED NUMBER OF PLAYERS
Objection: at any time before or during a match a team may make an objection to the referee about the number of players in their opponents’ team. As soon as the referee knows that a team has too many players, the referee must order the captain of that team to reduce the number appropriately. The score at the time of the objection remains unaltered.
Penalty: Penalty at the place where the game would restart.
The game would have restarted with a penalty and that is what the referee did, penalise the Sharks at the place where they had already been penalised.
By law the score remains unaltered.
Could the Sharks be fined? That is up to the organisers of the match, SANZAR. It’s not a part of the Laws of the Game.
