24 February 2024 , 14:36
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Identical twins Jacob and Daniel Saifiti tried to fool a referee by swapping places during a televised Australian rugby league match.
The Saifiti brothers were in action for Newcastle Knights in a pre-season outing against Melbourne Storm on Saturday, with the incident occurring in the 66th minute.
Jacob was punished for a rash tackle on on Melbourne prop Tui Kamikamica, which resulted in a brawl being broken out between the two teams. That distracted referee Belinda Sharpe, who was attempting to calm down the situation. In the meantime, Jacob quietly dashed to the dugout to be replaced by Daniel.
But Sharpe ended up spotting the "switcheroo" and saw the funny side of it. She asked Daniel: "Where's Jacob? Bring him back on." Jacob then headed for the sin bin as Newcastle were temporarily reduced to 12 players.
Andrew Voss, who was commentating on the game for Fox Sports, was left in hysterics by the situation. He said: "Oh, hang on, the old switcheroo. The brothers, oh, that’s so clever, Newcastle. I’m standing (and) applauding. You got him off the field, amazing. That’s a beautiful piece of play. That is rugby league.
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"You can go back now and sit down, Belinda Sharpe has the last laugh, but they’ve done the switcheroo with the identical twins. A brilliant piece of rugby league right there. What a moment that is."
Daniel Saifiti attempted to swap places with twin brother Jacob (FoxSport)It isn't the first time there has been some kind of mistaken identity at the top level of sport. During an FA Cup game between Barnsley and Manchester United in 2009, Red Devils full-back Fabio was booked for a foul committed by twin brother Rafael. The FA were forced to intervene and reverse the yellow card decision.
Meanwhile, Ben and Tom Curry were involved in another case when they were both on loan at Sale in the Rugby Premiership. Ben was forced to play through injury because they took the wrong twin brother off. "I think they saw I’d got a niggle, but they took Tom off," Ben told The Times in 2017.
"I didn’t want to say anything, so I just limped around for a bit." Tom laughed about the situation, however. He added: "That was quite funny. I got subbed back on, once they realised!"
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