Paul Rees, writing in The Guardian, believes that the laws preventing teams from fielding 16 men are inadequate in the wake of the Ospreys' indiscretion against Leicester.
"If Lee Byrne's unsanctioned reappearance for the Ospreys in the final quarter of the Heineken Cup match against Leicester after he had been off the field having a cut toe treated did not amount to Bloodgate revisited in terms of intent to cheat, it raised anomalies in the administration of the tournament and the rules of the game.
"Leicester have cried foul and called for the match, which they lost 17-12, to be replayed on the grounds that Byrne had prevented Ben Youngs from continuing with a potentially try-scoring break just after coming on as the 16th man. They also claimed that the reason they were not awarded a penalty that the rules said should have been theirs — after the referee, Alan Lewis, had been made aware of Byrne's trespass — was that an Ospreys player had told him that the Tigers also had an extra man on the field. Ospreys and Byrne have today been charged with misconduct and must attend a hearing on Friday.
"Law 3.2 of the International Rugby Board's rules of the game states that 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 a referee knows that a team has too many players, the referee must order the captain of that team to reduce the number of players accordingly. The score at the time of the objection remains unaltered. Sanction: a penalty at the place where the game would restart."
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