Four matches into the 2010 Tri-Nations and the die has been cast - the teams that come through victorious are not just the ones that score the most points or most tries, but also the ones that concede the fewest yellow cards.
That in each instance the better team have won should not obscure the fact that cards do have a massive impact, and often inordinately so if the seriousness of the offence is weighed up and analysed.
The yellow card madness, as it has been called by some New Zealand journalists, has seen eight handed out in two matches - many of them for offences which in the past would have been no more than penalties.
Respected rugby people from around the world are now rallying around the call for a review of a system that too easily leads to an unfair contest and thus robs the stakeholders.
One of them is South African Sanzar citing commissioner Freek Burger, a former top referee who has to go through 150 games in a season with a fine-tooth comb in his new role as the watchdog for citeable offences.
"The time is now long overdue that rugby administrators and the game's stakeholders sit down and thrash this thing out because having uneven contests is ruining the game," said Burger.
"I am not blaming the referee from last week's game in Melbourne, Craig Joubert, because he was applying the law, but once Drew Mitchell was sent off with a red card, the match became like flat Coke. I can't imagine the people who paid money to watch it should have been happy with the situation. It's they who get short-changed as much as the teams who are penalised. It's wrong."
What bothers Burger is not the Law 10 offences pertaining to dangerous and foul play such as spear tackling, punching or kicking players on the ground. Teams with players who do that have throughout history risked being reduced to 14 men. Had Bakkies Botha's headbutt on Jimmy Cowan in the Auckland Test been spotted, there would have been no complaint had he been red-carded.
"Is it right a game gets so drama-tically affected by one of the teams having a player who is carded for throwing the ball away?" asks Burger.
He believes there is a problem when the system ranks technical offences like that at the same level as a Law 10 offence, which is what saw Mitchell get his initial yellow.
"I would like to see the introduction of a white card, which would be for technical offences and would serve as a warning. Two white cards would get you sent from the field for 10 minutes. The yellow card would only be for Law 10 offences, and that would get you an automatic 10 minutes off the field."
Burger is joined by well-travelled former Western Province, Eastern Province, Saracens and London Irish coach Alan Zondagh, now heading up his own rugby performance centre in Riebeeck West, in calling for a booking system like the one used in soccer as a possible solution to the problem.
"I want to turn off when the game is changed to an unfair contest of 15 against 14 or 13," says Zondagh.
"Yes, we must do everything we can to discourage negative play, but taking away the 15 against 15 component turns the match into a farce. In what other sport do you see a minor infringement result in an unequal battle like you do in rugby? It just robs the spectators.
"Rugby should introduce a system like soccer. A certain number of bookings in the same match and you are sent off, and once you have reached a certain number of bookings in a season, you are suspended for the next match your team plays."
Zondagh goes even further by suggesting a radical change to the scoring system in rugby by adding to the value of a penalty when committed in a particular part of the field.
"If you want to discourage negative play, then you need to make the penalty for such play greater when it makes a real difference to the game. There should be a red zone inside the 22-metre area where a penalty is worth four points."
That makes sense if you consider that negative play near your own tryline dramatically curbs the opposition's chances of scoring a five- or seven-pointer.