Graham Rossiter: Player penalties must be consistent

The brawl between the Auckland Grammar and Kelston 1st XV rugby teams at Auckland Grammar School. Photo / Murray Job, Sky Sport

The disciplining of rugby players at the grass-roots (including schoolboy) level is in the hands of judicial committees convened by each of the 26 provincial unions in New Zealand.

The core business of such bodies involves the hearing and determination of penalties (usually suspensions from playing the game) following the receipt of an ordering off report from the relative referees' association.

In addition, a judicial committee may deal with complaints (typically called citings) against a particular player, often from the opposing club or school.

A player may be disciplined for foul play (in simple terms something that happens on or near the field of play) or misconduct which is not necessarily confined to the playing area or player on player misbehaviour.

Club, school or team officials may also be the subject of misconduct complaints.

The most important point to bear in mind regarding the rugby disciplinary system is the processes of all the provincial judicial committees are subject to the New Zealand Rugby Union Disciplinary Rules, embodied in a document called "the black book".

Those rules, in turn, reflect the principles contained in the relative International Rugby Board procedures.

There is, with regard to the assessment of penalties, a quite clear sequential process to be followed. This will be in terms of the scale of penalties set out in the black book and the specified criteria to be applied in assessing a particular instance of foul play.

Any foul play or misconduct must be assessed as being (a) lower end, (b) mid-range or (c) top end. The first question to be determined by any judicial committee will be which scale is applicable and the second issue will be where, on the particular scale chosen, the starting point for a consideration of penalty should be fixed.

For example, the lower end range for striking an opposing player with a fist is two to four weeks, the mid-range is five to seven weeks and the top-end is eight weeks plus.

A judicial committee might, perhaps, consider an appropriate starting point to be the mid-range entry point of five weeks.

There are a range of factors to be taken into account in determining the applicable scale and the starting point on that, including things like the degree of deliberation involved and the presence or absence of provocation.

Two of the more important considerations that rugby judiciaries have taken into account in determining the starting point for the calculation of a penalty have been (1) the nature and degree of any injury suffered by the victim of the foul play and (2) the impact of whatever has happened on that particular game, for example, has the victim had to leave the field and be replaced by another player not a specialist in his position.

Having decided on the applicable scale and starting point, rugby judicial officers are then required to consider the presence or absence of aggravating and mitigating considerations.

These can include such aspects as expressions of remorse from the player, his disciplinary record and, importantly, his age.

The last mentioned point means that by and large, a schoolboy will end up getting a lighter penalty than a senior player guilty of the same offence.

Some might debate the rightness of this but basically the rationale is the same as that underpinning the youth justice system.

Overall, any judicial committee has to approach cases that come before it on the basis of firstly ensuring that justice is being done in the particular circumstances of an individual case but also that there is reasonable consistency.

With regard to the latter aspect, the NZ Rugby Union does such things as distribute to provincial unions the decisions (as guiding precedents) of judicial officers at the higher levels, such as Super 14 and Tri-Nations, as well as the NZ provincial competitions. The NZRU also in 2008 held a training workshop for provincial judicial officers.

With regard to the example mentioned above of striking another player, the high water marks at the top levels of the game would be such cases as Clint Newland (Air New Zealand Cup, 2007), 10 weeks, and Rua Tipoki (Super 14, 2006, striking with an elbow), 16 weeks.

In both these cases, there was an unusual combination of factors adverse to the players with respect to the calculation of their penalties . The highest suspension I have imposed for punching was seven weeks.

We fixed the starting point as being at the upper end of the mid-range with no mitigating factors. This was a senior player, there was some injury requiring post-match medical attention and a clear impact on the game. (The victim of the foul play was a halfback who had to be replaced by a lock).

There is a theoretical maximum for punching of 52 weeks. I am personally not aware, in the modern New Zealand context, of any suspension for punching anywhere near the maximum.

Most suspensions for punching would be in the two to five week range with the median, across all levels of rugby, being closer, in my view, to two weeks than five.

If the relative principles and criteria as set out in the black book are properly applied, the risk of there being bizarre idiosyncratic decisions is significantly reduced.

* Graham Rossiter is a Palmerston North lawyer, and chairman of the Manawatu Rugby Union judicial committee. Views expressed here are entirely personal to the writer and should in no way be taken as indicative of the position of the Manawatu Rugby Union with respect to the operation of rugby judicial processes, whether in the Manawatu or anywhere else.