Editorial: ARU must fix unfair rugby punishment

The Auckland Rugby Union should be moving with urgency to hear an appeal from Kelston Boys High School against the penalties imposed on its players for the flare-up in a secondary school rugby semi-final match. The punishments, suspension from all rugby codes for periods ranging from 10 to 16 months, are manifestly excessive and inequitable. Two pupils have been barred from the game until July next year, two until September and one will be unable to play another match until 2011.

The other team involved, from Auckland Grammar School, has had four players suspended for periods ranging from two to seven weeks. The Grammar team, since it won the semi-final, suffered the more immediate penalty of the loss of those players for the final. But fairer sanctions could surely be devised for the culprits in the team whose season had finished.

The ARU appears to have been stampeded by the publicity attracted by the incident, which was caught on camera and screened on television. A union disciplinary panel, which unfortunately included a parent of a boy at Grammar, held formal hearings over two nights before coming down with its ludicrous decisions.

It reviewed the film closely, heard from the players, and it says the disparities in the sentences reflect not just degrees of individual culpability but the impact on each player's immediate future. Obviously, if suspension is the only sanction available, it would have to apply from next season in some cases. But two to four weeks would seem sufficient to cover the range of blame.

This, after all, was a silly, immature brawl. Nothing more. It began with a Grammar try, some jostling on the try-scorer, a Kelston player got up and threw a punch, Grammar players piled in, so did nearby spectators and it was all on for a few minutes. The only known injuries that occurred were done to the reputations of the schools.

The image of rugby, which is always said to suffer, is harmed much more by truly dangerous offences like eye-gouging or spear-tackling or raking the head of a player on the ground. All of these have been seen in recent years and none has been punished more heavily than the full season suspension imposed on a Kelston boy for punching.

All-in brawls used to occur in rugby more often. One of them in a match would normally be forgiven, a second would cause the referee to take serious action. They have become rare in the professional era because top players have acquired more pride. Niggles and fisticuffs are a sign of the second-rate.

To the crowd they are always a spectacle greeted with amusement and recalled in discussion long after the game. So it was for the national audience that watched television replays of this incident. It provoked a great deal of public discussion and inevitably its seriousness became exaggerated.

The principals of the injured schools added fuel to the fire initially by blaming each other's team. But Kelston had imposed its own suspensions before the ARU got into the act and Grammar's head, John Morris, has said his offending players would face internal discipline independently of the ARU. That is as it should be.

This was an incident for the schools to deal with. It should have gone no higher than administrators of the schools' competition. Young rugby players who watch the professionals today can see how to treat provocation with the contempt it deserves. Schools can readily reinforce the respect that players earn when they refuse to be diverted.

The ARU has shown itself incapable of dealing sensibly with schoolboys. It should hear Kelston's appeal quickly and reduce these penalties to a level that is fair.