Sunday's Six Nations match between Ireland and Italy descended into farce after just 19 minutes in Dublin.
Chaos ensued when Epalahame Faiva was sent off in the opening quarter of Italy’s Six Nations match against Ireland in Dublin.
He had only been on the field 10 minutes after replacing the injured Gianmarco Lucceshi, before seeing red for a dangerous tackle on Dan Sheehan.
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Referee Nika Amashukeli ruled he made contact with Sheehan’s chin with his shoulder, insisting there were no mitigating factors.
But worse news was to come for Italy as it quickly emerged there was a bigger problem.
The Italians had no front-rower left capable of playing hooker and the game was forced to move to uncontested scrums as result.
But, under rugby's laws, moving to uncontested scrums because of a red card means a team must be reduced to 13 players and another front-rower brought on.
The ruling is in place to prevent teams from abusing the laws, and assuring uncontested scrums whenever they want.
The law states: "If a front-row player is sent off, and the team cannot continue with contested scrums with players already on the field, then the team nominates another player to leave the playing area to enable an available front-row player to come on. The nominated player may act as a replacement.”
It's understood if another Italian player was capable of playing hooker it would have needed to have been disclosed before the game.
Italian winger Pierre Bruno and No 8 Toa Halafihi were the two players sacrificed with Ivan Nemer coming on.
Ireland were leading 7-3 at the time of the sending off, but soon took advantage of the numerical advantage to lead 24-6 at half time.
They eventually powered to a 57-6 win, with Italy playing the final seven minutes with just 12 men after Braam Steyn was sin binned.
The law has left plenty of fans confused and many calling for it to be changed after the match was essentially turned into a non-contest.
Italian international Tommaso Allan said: "What a way to ruin a rugby game…this rule doesn’t make sense."
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