Following Melbourne footballer Tom Bugg’s strike to the face of Sydney young gun Callum Mills on Friday night – which saw Bugg handed a six match suspension.

There has been much debate around whether or not AFL umpires should have the ability to hand out yellow and red cards.

The hit in the opening minutes of the contest left Mills on the bench for the remainder of the match while Bugg played out the game – effectively leaving the Swans, who won by 35 points, a man down.

Le Grand has been umpiring since 1990 and handing out cards has always been an option for umpires throughout his time.

He said it was a “handy tool” for country football umpires to have given the more-likely chance of on-field indiscretions getting out of hand and less means of control in comparison to the AFL environment.

But he stressed that red cards were extremely rare and umpires were conscious of the heavy cost to be paid by a player for red card decision and the difficulty to be certain an incident is worthy of a red card in the high-speed game of AFL.

“I think it’s (the use of cards) worked from our point of view,” Le Grand said.

“It’s a handy tool to use as a deterrent, but we’re really careful to make sure we are 100% certain on red cards.

“If in doubt we’d always refer back to a yellow (card).”

Le Grand noted there was only four categories of offences that could warrant a red card.

Ballarat Football League operations manager Scott Carey said cards were just a part of the local game.

“I don’t think we see too many. If they do, clubs are aware that the incident may have been very serious to warrant one...clubs understand that’s part of the game.

In the BFL a red card sees a player sent off the ground for the remainder of the match. That player can be replaced by an interchange player after 20 minutes. While a yellow card sees the offender sent off for 15 minutes.