Player red carded in an unsanctioned friendly 10s match at the field of a 15s tournament, is the player out for the day at the tournament?

[SimonSmith]

This whole thing is symptomatic of some of the issues facing USA Rugby. To give my comments that follow some context, I'll lay out my USA experience - not for Kudos, but so you can see I have experience whereof I speak.

I ran a Ref Soc for 10 years; I was a Discipline Chair for 10 years, on the local GU Exec; I was on the USA Rugby Senior Club Council for about a year, and was heavily involved in the rewrite of the Terms of Reference; similalry, I did the Ref's Committee Terms of Reference and helped re-establish it.

So. There are rules, and processes, and regulations, all there for a reason. And a lot - most? - of people ignore them when they aren't convenient or because someone local thinks they know better. Every time our area had a tournament, I tasked the Tournament Organizer, and the Head Ref when it was my Society, to get this sh-stuff organized ahead of time, and ensure consistency of process across tournaments, friendly or competitive. 2 States to the North, one to the South, this didn't happen, and whenever we had teams from those areas come to visit, you would hear "well the tournament last week....."

Some Unions follow Reg 17 (and others) as it is written; others are more...flexible, and it has led to massive discrepancies on length of sanctions handed down. I understand this is being addressed, but for a few years, the discrepancies were...big. To the point I got asked to handle contentious Disciplinary Committees because I had a reputation as creating unappealable outcomes - simply because I followed process.

Rugby in USA has an element of the COVID-denier tendency about it - the "I know better" factions on the ground who decide that governing bodies, or Unions, don't know better; or, even likelier, "yeah, fuckit, let's do it this way".

It's not just tournaments, it's everything - don't like the local Representative Side? Set up your own. Establish your own Academy. Set up your own competition.

You don't like what the Union does? Don't like the rules? Change them from within. Be part of the process of improvement. Don't secede and do your own thing because you think you know better. This fragmentation and independence is the sort of thing that other sports don;t have, and it's a reason rugby is a lagger.

Rant over.

 

[SimonSmith]

Oh interesting. Can you please provide a source to Regulation 17 please (I'm not familiar)?


Interesting. Can that be a head ref from the batch of refs the society sent to partake in the tournament? I think most times, at this level (social men's clubs) this doesn't happen formally, at least not for social games like an off-season tournament, and the referees are just assumed to be in that position.

I don't mean to be rude, but it's been a long day and I'm about done with humanity.

is your Google broken or something?

 

[Phil E]

I've just read four pages of comments, there's half an hour I can't recover.

It all boils down to...(caveat, this is from an RFU perspective), competition organisers should produce competition regulations. These should be discussed with the senior ref on the day, to ensure they don't try to bend/break the laws of the game. Before the tournament starts everyone (organisers, match officials, team managers) should be made aware of the regulations and agree to them. That way this kind of thing doesn't happen.

I have been at tournaments where the organisers, try to include things like, no red cards are to be issued, yellow cards won't happen, we will just sub the player for a bit, etc. That is why the senior ref on the day needs to go over the regulations with the organiser and make sure they are acceptable.

In the OP it should have been covered in the regulations. i.e. if a game can't be played due to number of players that have turned up then either; that team forfeits and goes home, or (get a game on) the result is a HWO or an AWO, but will still be played as a friendly under the tournament regulations.

The key message is make sure you have covered everything before hand, don't manage it on the hoof.

 

[Pinky2]

In Scotland all rugby is played under the governance of the SRU, even if there are informal arrangements for the appointment of referees, but I think the approach is that if you get a red card you are out of rugby until the disciplinary hearing happens and the sanction is completed, so in the OP post I would say no one should get a red card and then return to the field that day (or the next day) until the disciplinary process has been followed.

 

[chbg]

And ensure that all the referees (who might issue RCs) understand this.