Jake White calls for rugby to stamp out 'diving' after Bismarck du Plessis yellow

Blue Bulls head coach Jake White says rugby must not go down the path of football where divers seek to draw penalties from the match officials.

White’s remarks come in the wake of the Bulls 32-23 loss to Ulster after hooker Bismarck du Plessis was yellow carded for a clean out on Ulster flyhalf Billy Burns.

Burns was left on the ground following the clean out and gingerly returned to his feet. Once play stopped however, medics came on to attend to the No 10.

Replays of the clean out were then shown on the big screen to which Ulster fans roared their disapproval, forcing the match officials to take a closer look.

The TMO told the referee that Du Plessis’ clean out had no attempt to wrap as he used the shoulder into the back of Burns.

The former Springbok hooker was sin-binned with less than five minutes remaining

White was not happy with the decision that he thought wasn’t even a penalty and questioned whether Burns had intentionally stayed down.

“There are clean-outs like that all over the game, and I didn’t even think it was a penalty,” White said.

“I often wonder if their number 10 hadn’t laid down on the ground, whether that would’ve been looked for…

“Obviously it’s something we have to look at going forward, because what we don’t want is that every time a player gets cleaned-out, he lies down and makes the TMO look and review things.

“It’s something that we have to be careful of, because I know it happened in football, and then all of a sudden, they brought in something where if you dive, you get sent off as well.

“So, who knows: maybe in rugby, because it’s such a fine line now between yellow cards, red cards and TMO involvements that we are not going to get players trying to use every opportunity to influence the TMO, (there needs to be a way to address that).”

The Bulls slumped to their eighth loss of the season from 16 games in the United Rugby Championship and now sit in 7th position on the ladder.

The Pretoria-based club has been out of form across Europe and the URC, having now lost 11 of their last 13 in all competitions.

They face a tough challenge in the form of Toulouse in the last 16 clash in the Champions Cup next.