The only with hard count for a team yellow is the types of penalty given away, does a straight yellow/red count towards it. I think the below a fair assessment (don't read the comments) although as noted an attacking pen tends to have less 'weight' than an attacking one. You also have question if its fair to add scrum penalties to the list as well.
Social media has heaped plenty of mostly undeserved criticism on referee Andy Brace following England’s narrow win over South Africa.
www.rugbypass.com
Still I think Brace should of branded a yellow card earlier and I think it might more influenced by its being a different half (there does seam to be a reset that occurs that shouldn't, as well as length of time between warning and the next penalty) and the nature of those first half penalties. Whether it would changed I don't know the yellow card period actually was the point where England started to get a better grip on the game that they were badly loosing.
Not that it should of made a difference Kolisi should or probably had a word with the Brace earlier and he certainly shouldn't of had it when a potential yellow card was not given, it wasn't clear at first that was what he was arguing for and looked like it was dissent for the TMO decision. So a bad bit of ref management (thank god we didn;t have Farrell he'd probably got it upgraded to a red).
The only one I'd really consider excluding is holding on, it's the only "forced" penalty I can think of that doesn't gain the offender's anything in the vast majority of cases. If a team continues to seal off, drop the scrum etc... it should be considered.
That analysis shows that England should have seen yellow in the third quarter of the game at the very latest. 13 penalties in a forty minute window is ridiculously poor discipline by any metric. Then when the count starts going up to 5, 6, 7... again after the yellow another warning should be given out. I'm not going to give an exact number that I want to see, leave that to the guys with all the data but including a team yellow as a part of the game and leaving it to referees interpretation of not very strict guidelines isn't what I want to see at all.
A] That looks like you're wanting to simplify something - which goes against everything that rugby stands for.
You're going to have to explain that lol.
B] Do you reset that after giving a yellow? whether for accumulation or one-off?
I personally wouldn't reset but It's not a major barrier to implementing a rule that would improve the game.
C] In this case, they'd be right to object, as it's too simplistic. "penalty offence" covers too great a range of sins to then base anything off the US judicial systems (in turn, based on a simplified version of rounders) and say "3 strikes and you're out". There's a world of difference between a cynical laying on the wrong side of the ball within 1m of your own try line, versus an obedience to the laws of physics rather than rugby (someone jumps into you / falls face first onto your arm), or simply being less good than your opponent (scrum).
Most penalties just come down to forced pressure without the ball or trying to gain an illegal advantage with it, outside of foul play and cynical play I think weighting them is a fool's errand for the most part. Stopping a try scoring opportunity is already a yellow card so this should encapsulate nearly every other penalty in the game, otherwise why have the rule? Bad discipline is bad discipline.
Basketball have a rule where 6 personal fouls in a game get you DQed, it doesn't matter if they're intentional, cynical, accidental etc... It works well.
Typically, it's an accumulation of cynicism, or an accumulation the same damned penalty, or persistent within 5 minutes and 5 metres, and almost always after a final warning has been given. I've no problem with that. Equally, I've no particular problem with codifying it (so 4th cynical penalty = team yellow) - but even then there needs to be an allowance for time frames. Reductio ad absurdium: under the cosh on your own line, and several cynical holdings on to the ball carrier / lying on the wrong side => final warning => spotless play, not a single penalty given away for 50 minutes; then another holding onto the ball carrier 50 minutes after the final warning - that should NOT end up with a team yellow IMO.
Meh, in that scenario a team would have given an excessive amount of penalties away in a <30 min timeframe, I don't think a rugby match is long enough to factor in "good behaviour".
I can see I'm not in the majority here anyway but I think it'd improve the game and reduce infringements.