The material characterization of steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC), which is required for its implementation in design codes, should be based on nominal properties that describe its post-cracking strength in tension. In the case of brittle and quasi-brittle materials, such as concrete, the tensile parameters are often derived indirectly; however, for materials with more ductility, such as SFRC, there is conjecture whether or not an indirect measure may be used to establish the stress versus crack opening displacement relationship, such as use of three- or four-point prism test. In this paper we compare the results obtained from prism tests back analysed using the methodology of the 2010 fib Model Code with data from direct tension tests. The results suggest that the tension predictions of the Model Code can be improved by adopting the rigid plastic model with the stress determined at the point corresponding on the CMOD4