THE HERALD REPORTS

Player banned for 36 weeks can play for club

KEVIN FERRIE November 16 2006

An amateur rugby player who was banned from playing for 36 weeks last month can turn out for his club on Saturday because the Scottish Rugby Union disciplinary panel appears to have breached its rules.
Justin McNabb, a scrum-half with the Stobswell club which plays in the Caledonia Regional League, received the suspension for verbal abuse of a referee. Craig Cook, his team-mate, received a 12-week ban for a similar offence.
An appeals panel is now investigating whether the player should be given the opportunity to defend himself against the charges. The disciplinary panel apparently failed to give him the time necessary to do so.
The official reason given yesterday was that McNabb may play while "the appeals committee [comprising lawyer Rod MacKenzie, Peter Brown, the former Scotland captain and Rob Flockhart, former Scotland A manager] is seeking further information".
By appealing against the severity of McNabb's punishment, his club seem to have exposed the administrative failings of a panel which had defended its decision on its determination to follow the letter of the law.
Those called to hearings should get a week to respond. It transpires that the player only found out about his ban after The Herald contacted an official of his club seeking reaction to the punishment. The Stobswell committee had been planning to discuss how to defend their player but were shocked to discover the hearing had already taken place. It looks like Scottish rugby's equivalent of a lynching. At a private hearing, that he did not even know was happening, McNabb was tried and convicted in his absence.
At best, it seems that the collective sensibilities of a panel run by former referees were so offended by this alleged case of one of their own being criticised that they ignored or flouted their rules as they raced to pronounce condemnation
"Scottish Rugby's Discipline Panel . . . is determined to underline to the rugby community that such behaviour will not be tolerated," the opening sentence of their statement proclaimed.
The following week, Mark Robertson(playing against Hawks) - a professional player who may well have had a case for restraint of trade had he been similarly treated - received a one-week backdated sentence for verbal abuse.
When defending their action over McNabb, the SRU had told The Herald: "Scottish Rugby's Disciplinary Panel follows the recommended sanctions for offences within the playing enclosure as laid down by the IRB."
McNabb's offence was recorded as "verbal abuse". The tariff for that - Robertson was convicted of the same offence - is eight weeks with a discretionary range, as stipulated by the IRB, of anywhere between four and 12 weeks.
Just as in the apparent failure to follow their procedures regarding how the case was conducted, they failed, in both cases, to follow the sanctions they claimed to be bound by.
The SRU's disciplinary guidelines state that natural justice must be applied.
If so, a sport in which - depending on an individual's status - verbally abusing one is apparently deemed more serious than proferring a potentially lethal blow to another with head, fist or boot, must debate its priorities urgently.
Meantime, human nature is such that an even more brutal suspension could await McNabb if an attempt is made to cover the disciplinary panel's embarrassment.

This article was posted on 16-Nov-2006, 08:36 by Hugh Barrow.