Playing which team

[Davet]

I am sure it happens, but am interested in your thoughts and opinions.

Some league games involve the 2nd and 3rd (even 4th) sides of clubs whose respective 1st teams play in higher leagues.

Picture the scene: a 2nd team travels to play the 3rds of the opponents in a league game and find their opponents 1sts and 3rds at the ground, ready for their fixtures. The home 1sts then find that their opponents have cried off, and won't be coming.

The home 3rds then take to field against their opponents, and put well over 60 points on them - although on inspection said putative3rds appear to be heavily reinforced by some who appeared to warming up with the 1sts... who would usually play at least 5 levels higher....

 

[dave_clark]

what would you do as referee, or as club member / supporter?

as referee i'm not sure what if anything you could do.

 

[OB..]

It is not a matter for the referee, but for the admins. Our Reserve League (aka merit table) regulations specify that a club must not strengthen the lower team under such circumstances, but we recognise that it is very difficult to police - just how do you define a 3rd XV player in all cases? I certainly had occasions (before leagues) when I played for all four of my club's teams during the season.

That said, we require clubs to report all such occasions in the (pious?) hope that it will deter them simply because they have drawn attention to it. We had one very clear case earlier this season. A 2nd team game was called off, and banter on the touchline made it very clear that many of the original second team then played for the 3rds. Somebody was daft enough to post a report on the club website thanking the 2nds for helping them out! An alert member of the opposition spotted this and took a screen shot (it was changed very shortly afterwards).

We rely heavily on the good sense of the clubs to make the system work, so after discussion, decided not to get too draconian, and merely cancelled the win.

 

[Account Deleted]

In a Chess league I used to play in, teams had to register players to teams except the lowest side they ran. you could not play for a side lower than your registration but you could play up. There was also a limit to the number of games you could play above your registration level.

This stopped teams having too strong "floaters". It would be a little more awkward with rugby players returning from injury etc but I'm sure some thing could be sorted (al la HEC cup?)

 

[Phil E]

Not the referees problem.

If the club suspect something, then they can raise it with the league.

 

[Simon Thomas]

Nothing to do with the referee, and I would actively discourage any of our members from getting involved in any issues about player registration, eligibilty, age (for youth matches), 'ringers', etc. Only action is to collect the match cards with players names on it for some competitions.

Outside of UK, some Unions do ask their referees to inspect ID folders.

 

[Lee Lifeson-Peart]

age (for youth matches),

ST. Is this as opposed to age for (under) age in senior rugby? Would you take the same view if it was a case of a 17 year old propping?

My club were asked to appear in front of the RFU on an issue surrounding an underage player in senior rugby. The underage issue was, it appears from the transcipt, raised by the referee as part of his report (laddo was sent off).

 

[crossref]

ST. Is this as opposed to age for (under) age in senior rugby? Would you take the same view if it was a case of a 17 year old propping?

Age came up with me once : one coach approached me and objected to an old-looking player on the other team.

I spoke to the oppo coach and asked him to confirm that he knew and had checked the player's age. He confirmed that he knew the players DOB and he was in-age. That seems as much as ref should do (perhaps too much?)

I wanted to be sure that if this went further then (1) I could show I had showed appopriate concern for safety and (2) the coach couldn't fall back on the old: "I didn't know how old he was, he only joined three weeks ago and i assumed" defence..

 

[Account Deleted]

Any questions direct the coach to the other coach to discuss and check the reg forms. Not our problem on the pitch.

However, I'm sure there are ideas amongst us all of how rugby could police the matter.

 

[Simon Thomas]

ST. Is this as opposed to age for (under) age in senior rugby? Would you take the same view if it was a case of a 17 year old propping?

My club were asked to appear in front of the RFU on an issue surrounding an underage player in senior rugby. The underage issue was, it appears from the transcipt, raised by the referee as part of his report (laddo was sent off).

If any referee suspects a player is not 17 years old (or 18 year old in front row) and is playing in an adult rugby match, he has a duty of care to the player under RFU Regulations and Child Protection Policies to ask the skipper / manager to clarify the player's age in front of a witness. If assured the player is 17 (or 18 for FR) and he feels confident that is the case, he carries on. If not, and has any doubts, he asks for the under-age player to be replaced, and informs his Society of the incident.

If a club (and underage player) are silly enough to bring it to the referee and CB's attention through the player being dismissed, they deserve to be questioned by the CB / RFU.

 

[Lee Lifeson-Peart]

If a club (and underage player) are silly enough to bring it to the referee and CB's attention through the player being dismissed, they deserve to be questioned by the CB / RFU.

As indeed they were.

 

[SimonSmith]

Any questions direct the coach to the other coach to discuss and check the reg forms. Not our problem on the pitch.

However, I'm sure there are ideas amongst us all of how rugby could police the matter.

This comes up from time to time in the States with regard to College eligibility.

My answer is fairly pithy and along the lines of: see the white lines? I'll deal with the stuff that goes on in there. See him? The coach? You have a problem, speak to him.

I should pay credit (for once) to VRU and MARFU who have explicitly removed this from the referees and put protocols and processes in place that put the burden on the Administrators and coaches. My answer is therefore pre-approved