FACE-OFF Do we need to overhaul rugby’s disciplinary process? NIK SIMON BEN CISNEROS
RUGBY’S COURTROOMS are the equivalent of the bargain bin in the corner of your local convenience store: 50% off all year round.
Unless you are a terrorist, murderer or equivalent, there is a good chance the independent panel will find a mitigating factor to reduce your sanction.
Look at Owen Farrell’s hearing in September. Irrespective of your views on his high tackle on 18-year-old Charlie Atkinson, the disciplinary process that followed reduced the game to a laughing stock. His red-mist moment was judged to be a top-end offence worthy of a ten-match ban. That would have ruled out the England captain for the start of the upcoming Test campaign.
Yet Farrell walked away with a reduced five-match ban. Why? Because he had a positive testimonial from a charity, who’ve nothing to do with his on-pitch actions. His tackle left Atkinson, just out of school, unconscious. As one writer put it, presumably the testimonials were not from Save the Children.
Rugby’s disciplinarians often leave themselves open for ridicule. In his recent autobiography, Joe Marler revealed how he was advised to wear a suit and to cut his hair to reduce his chances of a long ban being handed down to him at a disciplinary hearing.
Actions should be judged at face value but that’s not the case. Instead, you’d better find yourself a good tailor and sign up at your local support centre, then you’re halfway there…
The rugby correspondent for The Mail on Sunday
Trainee solicitor at Morgan Sports Law and tweets at @rugbyandthelaw
RUGBY’S JUDICIAL system does not need a radical overhaul – it just needs fine-tuning. Some people decry apparent inconsistencies. Yet in any system of sanctioning, there’s a necessary element of discretion and with discretion there is always room for disagreement.
Any reform should be focused on minimising that area for potential dispute.
One way this might be improved is by weighting the factors that disciplinary panels must consider when determining the seriousness of an offence and applying the off-field mitigating factors.
Different panels approach things differently: some place great importance on the impact on the victim; others focus on intent. Similarly, some panels are willing to overlook a player’s past disciplinary record if they are otherwise of excellent character.
I would place intent as the most important factor in the assessment of seriousness and would place a guilty plea as the most significant mitigating factor. I’d also change the regulations so that there’s a limitation period on past disciplinary sanctions – for example, only bans from more than five years ago can be ignored for sanctioning purposes. These tweaks would require changes to World Rugby’s regulations but would go a long way to eliminating perceived inconsistencies.
On the whole, though, the system gets to a reasonable and fair outcome in the vast majority of cases. There is no need for wholesale reform.
EFORE THE 2007 World Cup, England trained with the Special Boat Service, writesJamesHaskell. On day one we did a race that involved groups of five carrying canoes on our head. Only four of us would carry the canoe at any one time, which meant swapping someone in and out every few minutes. But because ‘Ronnie’ Regan was in such bad nick and constantly having to sprint to catch us up, he’d last about ten seconds under the canoe before spluttering, “Hask! Swap out!”
After a mile or so, Ronnie was trailing behind us, not helping in the slightest. But when he came up behind Tom Palmer and his group, their canoe suddenly swung round and flew off their heads, scattering them like ninepins.
As Team Palmer were trying to work out what had gone on, Ronnie drew up beside me and whispered, between lungfuls of air, “Espionage, Hask. Espionage…”
It turned out he had flicked their water bailer, which hung from the canoe on a piece of string, round a fence post, thus stopping their progress in spectacular fashion.
As we neared the end, Ronnie drew up beside me again and spluttered, “Hask, swap out!” He took over and then sped up, so that when he passed the finish line and fell to his knees, coach Brian Ashton patted him on the back and said, “Great effort, Ronnie.”
I was half-dead on my back, muttering to myself, “Are you f***ing kidding me, he did f**k all!”
Brian looked at me and said, with a disappointed face, “You need to work on your fitness, Haskell…”
From What a Flanker byJames Haskell,pubbyHarperCollins,£20.
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