The rugby match card: what goes on it and how to stop doing it on paper

The match card is the only record of a game that outlives the game. Everyone knows the score by the time they reach the clubhouse, but who played, for how many minutes and what happened in the 63rd minute only stays written down there.

And at most clubs it is still a sheet of paper.

What a rugby match card needs

The details vary from one union to the next, but the core is the same everywhere:

• Both teams with their registrations. Name, shirt number and registration number for every player on the sheet.
• The starting line-up, 1 to 15. With positions, not just a list of names.
• The bench, up to 23. And the substitutions, with the minute and who came on for whom.
• Every score. Try, conversion, penalty goal and drop goal, each with the scorer and the minute.
• The cards. Yellow or red, with the player and the minute.
• The final score and the signatures of both coaches or team managers, and the referee's when your union or league asks for it.

It doesn't look like much until you're filling it in by hand in the 70th minute while you're trying to make a substitution.

Why paper fails

It doesn't fail because it's paper. It fails because of when it gets filled in.

A paper card gets filled in afterwards, from memory and in a hurry. And memory does what memory does: the minute of the second try is a guess, nobody wrote down when the 8 went off, and an under-18's registration number is copied wrong.

Then there's the obvious stuff: it gets wet, it gets lost in the boot of a car, and if you want it on a computer someone has to type it all in again.

Record it as it happens, not afterwards

The difference between a good match card and a poor one isn't the format, it's the timing.

If you log each score as it happens, there's nothing to remember at the end. The scoreline updates itself with every try and every penalty, the minutes are recorded at the exact moment, and when the final whistle goes the card is already written: you just close it.

And there's a reward you don't see on day one. If every score is logged, at the end of the season you have minutes played, tries and cards for every player without building a single spreadsheet. They come for free, because you already wrote them down.

What to demand from a digital match card

If you're swapping paper for an app, make sure it does these four things:

• It works at the ground. Plenty of pitches have no decent signal. If the tool needs the internet to record a try, it's no good.
• It prints on A4. Your league or union may still want a printable sheet with the registrations, not a link.
• Both sides sign it. A card without the opposition coach's signature doesn't count for much.
• It fills itself in from what you've already done. If you picked the team in the app, the match card shouldn't ask you for it again.

And the registrations

This is the detail everyone forgets. A player's registration number isn't match data, it's player data, and it should be stored on their profile from the start.

If it's there, the card fills it in on its own. If it isn't, someone will be copying twenty-three numbers by hand every Saturday, and one card in five will go out with a digit wrong.

Check too whether your union already runs its own online system for official results and team sheets. If it does, that one is what counts for the league; what you keep at the club is everything it doesn't hold: who played how long, who scored, and the whole season in one place.

In Kanteo the match card fills itself in from the line-up you already picked and the scores you logged during the game, closes with both coaches' signatures and prints on A4 with the registrations included. See how match day works or set up your club in two minutes.