I think the warning signal is simply a crowd pleasing attempt and little more. Teams infringe and the referee speaks to them and there comes a time where he has a word with the captain and says that the next infringment will result in a sin binning. The team warning signal is just a way of conveying that to the crowd and appeasing those who have noticed the persistent infringements and are shouting at the referee to sin bin someone.

I agree, but they shouldn't have to warn the captain that the next infringement will incur a team warning. They should just invoke the team warning at that point.

I think the team warning is not just about the crowd - it's also about the players; how often in the past did you see a ref call out the captain and tell him to 'have a word' with his players, only for the captain to run back into the line shaking his head and do no such thing?

I quite like the concept - they just need to tweak the execution to make it work properly.

I asked a question last week and didn't get answered

"with regard to the 'warning' rule for 2013, the frequency of the implication of tis seems to have decresed since the start of the season - do you consider this to be through an improvement in discipline, or has a level of leniency been introduced"