The club must show cause why it should not be excluded from next season's suburban rugby union competition.

Merrylands had 42 players sin-binned and nine players sent off during the competition.

The club was docked all points from one round, and that cost it the club championship.

The dismissals included three during the finals series after the club had already received a warning. One of the players was found not guilty.

Known as the Wolves and colloquially as the Kelpies, Merrylands must now front the Sydney suburban rugby union board, and a date for the meeting should be set this week.

Club president Mark Milner admitted the club had a disciplinary problem needing to be addressed but said the club was not totally at fault.

``The players receive a lot of sledging and the referees look at us differently,'' he said of Wolves teams, which have a strong Maori composition.

He said referees could be intimidated by other teams saying ``the black guy started it''.

``Some of the decisions have been ridiculous,'' he said.

Mr Milner said the players had been spoken to about their discipline after the first warning and he thought it had improved.

He said a player had been sent off for fighting just before fulltime in the first-grade grand final.

``We'll have to be more proactive,'' he said of the club's disciplinary policy, adding the club would consider measures like imposing its own penalties on top of suspensions if players were dismissed.

Holroyd councillor and former Wolves coach Greg Cummings was sympathetic to Merrylands.

``The quality of refereeing in the third-grade grand final was really appalling,'' Cr Cummings said.

``Merrylands had three players sin-binned in five minutes and when the captain asked the referee `can we at least play hard?' he was threatened with being replaced.''

He said the quality of sub-district refereeing was generally poor but Merrylands overdid the sledging sometimes.

Cr Cummings said when he coached Merrylands there were two rules: don't talk back to the referee and if a player was marched 10m, he would be replaced.

Merrylands won three premierships in 2007, were promoted and won the first, second and fourth-grade titles this year.

The first-grade team has lost two games in two seasons.