On Saturday a brawl involving about 100 students from two top rugby schools in New Zealand broke in front of the national rugby coach, Graham Henry.
The fight, between players and supporters, lasted five minutes and led to at least one schoolboy being knocked out.
The fight, trumpeted in the NZ Herald with the headline “Top schools in ugly rugby match brawl”, started after a last-minute try sealed a 20-9 victory in a school cup semi-final. An eyewitness said “somebody got upset and started throwing punches”.
“They all just joined in, including the reserves who were behind that goal line.”
This thugby behaviour brings rugby into disrepute and should immediately be addressed by the IRB by holding their respective member unions accountable and by imposing harsh sanctions, fines and bans on individuals, clubs and sub-unions.
South Africa has more than enough trouble with violence on and off the field turning into grievous bodily harm, which on some occasions has led to the death of two players. This is an appalling indictment because the parent union, the SA Rugby (Saru) constitution, clearly states that there is to be no hate speech, racism and discrimination.
Clearly the SA Rugby constitution now requires a code of conduct to be articulated in detail to all of Saru’s 14 unions and every president needs to sign off on this and bind his union or face the consequences.
If the union presidents cannot control their clubs then SA Rugby has to sanction the union.
It is imperative to uphold the sanctity and spirit of the game for it to flourish.
In short, only a potent multimillion-rand lawsuit slapped on SA Rugby and the SA Rugby Players’ Association (Sarpa) for dereliction of duty and failing to protect their member players and upholding the constitution could mobilise Saru and Sarpa to enforce the constitution and protect its members.
South Western District have led the way with a commendable 15-year ban on the errant clubs in Mossel Bay, but it is not enough. This has to be a collective effort in which every single player signs off to abide by a code of conduct and every single rugby club in South Africa does the same.
Let’s see what the ensuing months hold. Will an effective code of conduct be implemented?
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