A lot of toys have been thrown out of a lot of cots this year. From the Super 14 to the Heineken Cup to the Lions tour - much of the excitement created by some thrilling rugby has been soured by an inconsistent judicial system that is in desperate need of an overhauling.
The laws of the game and the judicial processes and procedures that enforce them are there to ensure that the sport remains one for gentleman, not hooligans.
The citing system that is so important to keeping rugby clean is supposed to be impartial, consistent and efficient, but when the Comité National Olympique et Sportif Français decides to overturn a disciplinary decision taken across the channel and then the World Champions feel the need to stage a protest against their 'victimization', something is clearly amiss.
Nothing gets fans, journos, refs, law makers and armchair experts more excited than foul play. Before you get all hot under the collar, let's set the record straight: We're not playing tiddlywinks here, as Tana Umaga once reminded us - "it's rugby," as Bakkies Botha once said to a ref who had asked him to take it easy.
The nature of the game we all love, where aggression and intimidation are unavoidable, means that there will always be the occasional rush of blood to the head and a bit of argie-bargie, so expecting players to act like ballerinas is ludicrous.
But while we're at it, let's make another thing clear - there is no place in rugby for fingers in eyes or punches to the groin (as Schalk Burger recently found out, and Andrew Sheridan should have).
There are very clear laws as to what is and isn't allowed. No, you can't take a page out of 'The Undertaker's manual on how to decapitate a man' with clothes-line tackles. No, you can't pick an opponent up and dump him on his head.
So with such clearly defined 'Rules of Engagement' and so many cameras spread around fields to give officials a hundred different angles from which to scrutinise most incidents, why do we get the impression that the citing system is as inconsistent as it is important.
Unsurprisingly, Julia Harris' recent lambasting of the Springboks' armband antics garnered a ton of heated replies from both sides on the equator. (For the record, and for all those crying 'bias', Julia is not a puppet of the British tabloid press, and in fact hails from the southern half of our rugby planet).
While I agree with her that the Boks' armband protest was a over the top, I can't help think that calling Botha a 'thug' and suggesting that his reputation was worthy of a suspension was missing the mark.
Now don't get me wrong, dear Bakkies is no softy and his reputation for pushing the laws to their limit and beyond is totally justified. But beyond the merits and demerits of Botha's case, the point I'm trying to make is that every citing hearing should address the incident at hand. A reputation should never warrant a suspension in itself, but sadly this seems to be becoming a trend.
South African rugby fans would jump at an opportunity to illustrate a case in point, taken from this year's Super 14: How did Brett Sheehan come away scot-free from trying to rearrange Bradley Barritt's face with his shoulder, when JP Nel got slapped with a four-week suspension for a sloppy tackle a week later.
We can already see our opinion mailbox overflowing with messages from enraged Aussies and Kiwi's wanting to (justifiably) cite a number of examples of South African brutality. No one is pretending that Nel is a saint (his less-than-clean record speaks for itself) and Sheehan is by no means a 'dirty player', but the two incidents serve as a convenient illustration of point with a far larger scope.
Taking another look at the incidents in question, it seems that Sheehan's late charge on Barritt was more than reckless, and that he was trying to slam his shoulder into his opponents cheek. So powerful was the impact that it left the Sharks' centre knocked out cold. Nel's swinging arm attempt to stop Stephen Terblanche certainly merited a sanction, but four weeks for a marginally high tackle, that was more sloppy than it was malicious, seems awfully harsh.
Last October, Perpignan threatened to pull out of the Heineken Cup if their appeal against hooker Marisa Tincu's 18-week suspension for eye-gouging failed. It did. Perpignan continued to play in without Tincu, but took their case to the French authorities, who decided to allow the Romanian hooker to play in the Top 14, much to the IRB's displeasure. That decision lent a lot of weight to French clubs' assertion that they were being dealt an unfair hand by refs and in disciplinary hearings, much like the Springboks are feeling today.
Again, I am by no means pretending that Tincu is a straight up-and-down fella - in my humble opinion he's one of the dodgiest players in the game - but Perpignan's protests and the fact that there was no clear footage of the incident, certainly did raise an eyebrow or two.
One gets the distinct impression that in all the incidents mentioned above, the players' disciplinary records influenced their respective sanctions. Does that mean that incidents are no longer judged solely on the merits of every individual case? Such a contention would certainly support Nel's assertion that he could no longer play Super Rugby because "any team that picks [him] now will be running a risk, regardless of what [he does]."
The only reasonable explanation for the discrepancies in the punishment dished out is the fact that disciplinary officials are human beings and brutality is in the eye of the beholder. In the professional era, it's fair to say that, for the most part, we've moved beyond the inaccuracies of biased officials.
So what then is the solution? As my colleague suggests, 'a centralised and consistent disciplinary committee would be a good start.'
Should the same panel adjudicate in all disciplinary hearings to ensure fairness across the board? The logistical implications of such a suggestion would make it very hard to implement in practice, but with today's technology it wouldn't be impossible. Having a couple of retired players on that panel wouldn't be a bad idea either.
Consistency is the name of the game. If the likes of Botha, Nel and Tincu are as 'dirty' as their reputation suggests, they should be cited regularly, not just once in a blue moon when they are slapped with a hefty ban to make up for all their past transgressions.
Punishment should fit the crime, and all crimes should be punished. Let's play hard, but let's play fair. We've seen enough mud slinging. We've heard enough 'we didn't cite you but you cited us' whingeing.
It's time to start picking up our toys - far too many have been tossed about of late. Let's hope the IRB helps in cleaning up.
By Ross Hastie
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