Disciplinary dramas
Earlier this year the Rugby Football Union wrote to World Rugby expressing concern that the latter’s regulations did not provide sufficient supervisory and intervention powers over unions when it came to disciplinary issues.
It is ironic now, given that World Rugby’s intervention last month earned the England prop Joe Marler a two-match ban and £20,000 fine after the Six Nations had opted to take no action against him for calling Wales’s Samson Lee “Gypsy boy”, but the RFU’s target was France and the perceived failure of its rugby federation to cite players for acts of foul play that elsewhere in Europe would result in a date with a disciplinary panel and banning players in accordance with World Rugby’s regulations.
At the end of January the Stade Français hooker Laurent Sempéré was suspended for 15 weeks after being found guilty of putting a hand near the eye area of the Leicester prop Marcos Ayerza in the European Champions Cup match between the sides. He had been cited for the offence and appeared before an independent disciplinary panel convened by the tournament organisers, along with his team-mate Paul Gabrillagues, who was given eight weeks after admitting making contact with the eye area of Dan Cole.
The week before, the Saracens wing Chris Ashton had been suspended for 10 weeks for a similar offence in the Champions Cup match against Ulster and missed the Six Nations having a few days earlier been recalled to the England squad. He completed his ban and returned to action at the beginning of this month.
Sempéré, meanwhile, was playing again for Stade within a month of his suspension despite not appealing against it. He profited from French law which, put simply, does not recognise the sanctity of bans laid down outside the country. Its code du sport means they have to be upheld in France to be applied internally.
In 2008 another hooker, Perpignan’s Marius Tincu, received an 18-week suspension for eye-gouging during a Heineken Cup match against Ospreys. When his appeal was thrown out, he asked for a hearing with the National Olympic and Sports Committee in France, the body that oversees all the sporting federations in the country.
It found that his ban had been based on presumption rather than hard evidence and freed him to play in the French league, the Top 14, immediately. His suspension continued to apply outside France but it created alarm in World Rugby because its principle of sanctions applying universally had been shattered.
After consulting with the French Rugby Federation and the Top 14 organisers, the Ligue Nationale de Rugby, World Rugby helped establish in 2009 a commission that would deal with bans imposed on French players outside the country, made up of representatives from the FFR and LNR and chaired by an independent lawyer. It was brought into action quickly when Julien Dupuy and David Attoub were banned for eye area contact offences during a European match and petitioned to be allowed to carry on playing in the Top 14.
They failed and their case showed the difference the commission made. When the Olympic committee heard Tincu’s case, it not only pointed to the lack of incontrovertible evidence but it did not recognise European Rugby Cup Ltd, the organiser of the Heineken Cup, as a sporting governing body. The commission does not question the right of the Champions Cup organisers, European Professional Club Rugby Ltd, to take disciplinary action and judges each case on fact.
The Commission Mixte decided that Sempéré’s ban should not be applied in France because, as in the case of Tincu, it did not consider that the evidence, the testimony of Ayerza and pictures of marks around his eye, justified the guilty verdict. Sempéré missed Stade’s quarter-final at Leicester on Sunday, but his club’s defeat meant his suspension is now spent: World Rugby will not look to have the 15 matches applied to European competition because of the precedent it would set.
The question of why Sempéré did not appeal against his 15-week ban to the Champions Cup organisers is unanswered but he did not have to, knowing he had the commission to fall back on, although surely that body should be one of last resort. Two years ago he protested he had been eye-gouged during a match against Harlequins but a lack of evidence meant no one was charged.
Sempéré was given a 21-week suspension after contesting the charge. It was reduced by six weeks because of his previously good disciplinary record, good character, excellent conduct at the hearing and concern for Ayerza’s welfare. A copy of the full written judgment is offered as a link on the tournament organiser’s website but it fails to open. However, it is available in the discipline section on the site.
English clubs have reacted indignantly to a player being banned but largely escaping punishment. “This creates massive issues for us,” said Premiership Rugby’s rugby director, Phil Winstanley. “You will always get a club or a player who is not happy with an outcome but at least we have a system based on universality with sanctions applying across competitions. That’s no longer the case and it is a massive problem.”
It is not a problem that affects football where suspensions are competition-specific. A logical outcome of the Sempéré case would be to apply that to rugby but football bans tend to be short and measured in matches rather than weeks: a footballer sent off in an international receives a three-game ban that is immediately served but, if a Test rugby player gets 26 weeks, or matches, it would take three years to complete and doubtless face a court challenge.
World Rugby cannot change French law but now the Champions and Challenge cups are in effect run by clubs, those taking part could be asked to sign a playing charter if they want to compete, binding them to all the rules, regulations and processes, including discipline, in return for the not insubstantial participation money they receive.
A problem for World Rugby is that, having intervened in Marler’s case, and a few others before when it felt the “punishment” had not fitted the crime, it is powerless to act over Sempéré because of French law. It may be that the level of proof at his original hearing was not high enough but he should have appealed. That he did not suggests that the French clubs see the commission as a time-saving loophole, something denied all the other participants.
The case may force EPCR, in the interests of consistency, to examine the issue of proof, raising the level to render the commission to all intents redundant.
Hooper bows out but insists future is bright for beloved Bath
The Bath captain, Stuart Hooper, hoped to end his 17-year career against Leicester on the final day of the season but a back injury sustained against the Tigers last November has forced him to retire on medical advice.
Hooper, 34, has captained Bath for the past five seasons, leading out the side at Twickenham in May last year for the Premiership play-off final against Saracens.
He is in talks with the club about a new role and the head coach, Mike Ford, values the input of the second-row, who started his senior career at Saracens before joining Bath from Leeds eight years ago.
“I hoped to be able to play until the end of the season but the surgeon and medics advised me it would not be safe to do so,” Hooper said. “They took the decision out of my hands. When it gets to that stage it has to be the case because your welfare is important.
“I am immensely proud to have been captain of Bath for five years, a club based in a rugby city. The club is part of my life and make-up, something I think about all the time. Leading the team out was always special, a small part but a fantastic feeling, a symbol of all the work you put in.
“When you make a decision like this, you get reflective. As a player, you are driven to succeed. That is not there for me now and, while it has not been a brilliant year for Bath, you learn from it and I hope it will stand me in good stead in the future. We wanted to kick on after making the final last year but it will not tarnish my memory of 16 years of playing.
“I will never forget the atmosphere at last year’s play-off semi-final at home to Leicester. The players always meet in the pavilion before a game and that day a number went out on to the field, joined by a group of five- and six-year-olds who were soon doing keepie-uppies with them. There was a real buzz and we smashed them. People afterwards said it was their best day in however many years of watching Bath and to be able to affect people’s lives in that way is very special.”
“I am talking to the club about a role next season. I have been here for eight years and been on a journey with them. I would like to think I have added something and I have learned a lot. I have been through ups and downs and imparting that experience to the next generation is important. My four boys and wife are dearest to my heart but after that it is this place. As soon as I wake up I think about what we can do here. The future for the club is bright. The sky is the limit for what the players can achieve and, if I can help them, I will be happy.”
Hooper believes the careers of the top players will get shorter but not because of injuries. He points to the growth of the Premiership, which, in terms of quality, organisation and support is far removed from the game he entered as a young Saracen in 1999.
“The tournament now is unrecognisable from what it was then. London Irish are bottom of the table now but would have been in the top four in those days,” he said. “I played when I was 18, coming straight out of school, a kid in a man’s game. The young players today come out of school as men and the quality is improving all the time.
“People talk about careers getting shorter through injury and they will get shorter, not necessarily through being forced to retire but because of the quality coming through from the academies. Look at England now in the second row: a few years ago you would have said that Joe Launchbury and Courtney Lawes would be shoo-ins for the next 10 years and all of a sudden you have a 21-year old Maro Itoje and George Kruis there now dominating. Who is to say the next guy is not coming in two years’ time rather than 10, as it would have been back in the day? Those long England careers are not going to happen any more.”
Ford says his regret was that Hooper did not lay his hands on silverware in the club’s colours. “I have worked with a number of captains over the years and Stuart is by far the best,” he said. “Not just for what he does on the field but what he does every day at the club. He shows young and old players how to act as a professional; people never see the grind, what we do in training when it is windy and wet.
“Stuart lifts the team in his words and actions. He is an inspirational speaker and people want to follow him. He is not afraid to challenge the coaches because he wants the club to do well. My relationship with him is honest and open and I respect him so much. At times we disagree but that’s healthy. He is in discussions with the club and I hope he is here next season because his talents are too good to lose. He is one of the best people in rugby in terms of character.”
• This is an extract taken from the Breakdown, the Guardian’s weekly rugby union email. To subscribe, just visit this page, find ‘The Breakdown’ and follow the instructions.
