Six Nations: Warren Gatland still seeking suitable punishment for card offenders

WALES coach Warren Gatland has revealed he suggested imposing fines of up to £30,000 for players who receive needless yellow cards.

Wales will be without lock Bradley Davies for the remainder of the RBS Six Nations after he was handed a seven-week ban in the wake of the tip tackle that saw him sin-binned in Sunday’s 23-21 success over Ireland in Dublin, while captain Sam Warburton saw red for a similar tackle in the World Cup semi-final defeat to France.

Statistics show that Wales are the worst of the Six Nations sides when it comes to conceding points while a man down, and they have paid dearly in some instances, such as the 17 points conceded with Alun Wyn Jones in the bin during the 2010 Twickenham loss.

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Gatland said he has asked his squad to come up with a deterrent for those that give away needless yellow cards, as the players did not appear happy with his own proposal.

He said: “I have asked the players to come back with a suggestion on what we need to do in the future as a deterrent for yellow cards. I am not talking about unlucky yellow cards, I consider the yellow card Leigh Halfpenny had against Australia in December to have been a little bit unlucky, so I am not judging that as a stupid yellow card.

“But we have had yellow cards in the past which I think have been a little bit unnecessary. So I have asked the players to decide what sort of deterrent we need, as whatever I am saying at the moment is not working to a couple of individuals, in terms of me having criticised them publicly in the past and then being criticised myself for doing that.

“I did suggest a fine of £20,000-£30,000 could be relevant, but I don’t think they were not too keen on that.

“We need to come up with something relevant and we will come up with something in the next few weeks that the squad are happy with.”

Warburton admits it is time his side avoided any further outbreaks of the yellow peril. “I think a quite heavy fine would work,” said the captain. “Players have been dropped before. If you get dropped and lose out financially, I don’t think you would do it again. I know I wouldn’t.

“I have found myself seeing red in games, but I have bitten the bullet and kept my discipline. That is the most important thing.

“I haven’t spoken to Bradley about it because when I went through my red card, the last thing I wanted to do was talk about it to players. He knows he made a bad mistake.

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“It is definitely something we need to sort out because one day, if we’re playing a team like a southern hemisphere side and we did go down to 14 players, they would pretty much capitalise and score points every time.

“We have to sort it somehow, but I don’t know how to completely eliminate that from our game.”

Warburton, meanwhile, said he was “pretty confident” of taking his place in the Millennium Stadium starting line-up tomorrow after going off at half-time against Ireland.