Coach fumes at 'laughable' Scarlets v Bulls red card as 'fight' pledge made

The contentious decision was made minutes before the Welsh side scored the winning try

Bulls coach Jake White has been left fuming by the decision to show hooker Johan Grobbelaar a red card against the Scarlets and said he will "fight" for his player in his upcoming disciplinary hearing.

Grobbelaar was sent off less than 15 minutes from time at Parc y Scarlets on Friday night, following a high tackle on opposition hooker Marnus van der Merwe. The Welsh side soon made the man advantage count, as five minutes later a moment of magic from Tom Rogers saw them claim a shock 23-22 win.

It was the second time in as many matches that White had seen one of his players shown a red card, with David Kriel also given his marching orders during their victory over the Ospreys last weekend.

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That card was later rescinded and the Bulls have again confirmed that they will also challenge this latest decision against Grobbelaar, which was judged as "laughable" and "embarrassing" by fans and pundits alike.

Speaking after the match, White said that he did not believe that the tackle was worthy of sending off and hit out at the current confusion around red cards and how games are officiated.

"I want a similar case, the bottom line is I don’t think that was a red card, there were circumstances which I’m obviously not going to share,” he said.

“When there’s someone that is malicious and it’s off the ball and it’s genuinely a red card then we must never take that away from rugby. There is no place in rugby for that but there are things that happen in rugby that are unnecessary, the red card was put there for that exact reason because [of incidents] that are dirty and because it’s malicious and because it’s premeditated.

“Red cards weren’t ever put in place for rugby incidents, that’s why I said if we start with a thing is it a rugby incident? If yes, well then it becomes very different to the outcome," he added. “If you start with ‘Is it foul play?’ which is the way it is currently done, then you’re going to get a different outcome.

White also revisited the debate over 20-minute red cards and pleaded for rugby bosses to keep things simple rather than complicate matters further.

“I said this about the 20-minute red cards," he said. "What will happen is you’ll get an orange card, because the orange is closer to red and it’s not yellow - so then what we could do is go 'yellow is 10, orange is 15 and red is 20'.

"I don’t think that makes it easier for a referee. I think it makes it more difficult, a red card is simple. It's red, you were out of line, something that looks unnatural, it’s something that stands out and there’s no reason for you to keep that guy on the field.”