Lawmakers say the 20-minute red card is designed to "punish the player and not the team", with sides able to replace a dismissed player after 20 minutes. The men's Six Nations sta

The Six Nations is to adopt the 20-minute red cards that were trialled during the autumn. For the first time in the Championship, players sent off for technical offences can be replaced by a team-mate after 20 minutes have elapsed in an initiative design to punish players and not teams.

In a bid to make the massively popular championships more accessible to supporters and spectators, Six Nations chiefs are taking on some of the novel features introduced in the Autumn series and also

Referees can still hand out a permanent red card for foul play that is deemed to be deliberate and dangerous, but for technical offences that are not deliberate or intentional the offending team can r