‘The old switcheroo’ Identical twins try to trick referee by cheekily swapping places in rugby clash live on national TV

IDENTICAL twins Jacob and Daniel Saifiti attempted to trick a referee by swapping places midway through a televised rugby match.

The brothers featured for Australian rugby league side Newcastle Knights in a pre-season practice match against Melbourne Storm on Saturday.

Fox Sports

Daniel Saifiti attempted to switch places with twin brother Jacob[/caption]

Fox Sports

The referee spotted the switch straight away[/caption]

Getty

The twins play for Newcastle Knights[/caption]

Jacob was penalised for a late hit on Melbourne prop Tui Kamikamica in the 66th minute.

It resulted in a scuffle between the two sides, which distracted referee Belinda Sharpe.

While Sharpe was attempting to restore order, Jacob quietly headed for the dugout while Daniel replaced him.

However, the referee was quick to spot the “switcheroo” and saw the funny side of it.

She simply asked Daniel: “Where’s Jacob? Bring him back on,” before the prop headed for the sin bin.

Fox commentator Andrew Voss found the incident hilarious.

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.”

This wasn’t the first case of mistaken identity seen at the top level of sport.

In 2009 The FA were forced to reverse a yellow card decision after Manchester United full-back Fabio da Silva wrongly received a booking instead of his twin brother, Rafael.

Sir Alex Ferguson previously admitted that he could only tell the difference between the twins by the wedding ring worn by Fabio.

Twin brothers Ben and Tom Curry also became embroiled in a case of mistaken identity when they were on loan at Sale FC.

Ben was briefly forced to play through injury because the coaches took off the wrong player.

Speaking to The Times in 2017, he said: “I think they saw I’d got a niggle, but they took Tom off.

“I didn’t want to say anything, so I just limped around for a bit.”

Meanwhile, Tom joked: “That was quite funny. I got subbed back on, once they realised!”