Schalk Burger has doubled down on his prediction that World Rugby will expand the replacements bench on player safety grounds.

While so many ex-players and pundits have called for the bench to be reduced from the current number of eight, including former referee Nigel Owens, Burger predicts that it will go in the other direction.

Last year, Owens said that reducing the number of replacements would result in lighter athletes and would in turn speed up matches. He is not alone in believing that the bench should be made smaller, with ex-Ireland hooker Keith Wood and former Scotland head coach Matt Williams being of the same opinion.

World Rugby’s smart mouthguards

Burger has routinely hit out at these recommendations, particularly when it has been framed around the Springboks getting an unfair advantage with their forward-heavy bench splits.

However, his doubling down on the replacements bench being expanded is rooted in the player safety aspect of the game, particularly with World Rugby’s Instrumented Mouthguards (iMG).

These mouthguards have been fitted with sensors to measure linear and angular kinematics of the head and LED lights that flash red immediately when a player sustains a high-impact knock, notifying referees, medical staff, and fans.

In international rugby, if the LED lights up, a player is required to undergo an HIA, something that occurred several times throughout the opening weekend of the November Nations Championship. Springboks fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and flanker Paul de Villiers both underwent HIAs that they subsequently passed during the victory over Italy.

In Ireland’s clash with Argentina, Dan Sheehan and three Los Pumas players all left the pitch to undergo HIAs too. Sheehan failed his HIA as did Julian Montoya, whilst Leonel Oviedo and Marcus Kremer both passed theirs.

Schalk Burger: ‘It’s a massive disruption in the game’

Burger says that these mouthguards are problematic, especially if players are passing the HIAs, as it messes with the flow of a match while the tests aren’t quick either.

“I think it’s a massive disruption in the game. It’s not like the HIA process is a minute and you’re back either,” he said on the Verdict show.

“It’s a lot because you want to get it right. First and foremost is player safety, but I do think it’s unusual to get six players to get called off for the mouthguard buzzing. Maybe the algorithm is not quite correct.

“You could see the frustration in a lot of those players when they go off, and they said, ‘Well, I don’t think anything has happened’, but your mouthguard is buzzing. I noticed it in the Boks game but also that Argentina game, especially.”

Former Springboks hooker Hanyani Shimange agreed and added that teams are going to start embedding it into their training sessions.

“Teams are going to have to train for it, like just to yank random guys off the field during training or whatever, because you can’t argue against the technology. The doctor is sitting there with an iPad; it buzzes, and he has to react,” he said.

That prompted Burger’s latest prediction that it will force World Rugby to increase the number of substitutes.

“The issue we have is we run the risk that the match squad is not big enough. Like, 23 players is not enough,” he remarked.

As mentioned above, this is not the first time that the ex-back-rower made this prediction. Back in 2024, he said: “I think in the years to come, for player safety and more stringent HIA safeties, the squads will actually get bigger and go to 25 players.”