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

White’s remarks come in the wake of the Bulls 32-23 loss to Ulster, during which, hooker Bismarck du Plessis was yellow carded for a clean out on Ulster fly-half 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 Springboks hooker was sin-binned with less than five minutes remaining.

White was not happy with the decision 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 No. 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 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, 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 seventh on the ladder.

The boss reflects on the game that night.

💙🐃#ULSvBUL #TrueToTheBlue #BullsHeard @vodacom #URC pic.twitter.com/tEcwgzZyA8

— Official Blue Bulls (@BlueBullsRugby) March 26, 2023

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

The Bulls face a tough challenge in the form of Toulouse in the last 16 clash in the Champions Cup.