Volunteers at the heart of club rugby competitions

Once again, bylaws and processes will have an impact on the Wellington region’s Premier competition. Last year it was the debate and dispute over the interpretation of its application of the tiebreaker rule that saw Old Boys University wind up as one of the four tied teams to miss out on the Jubilee Cup playoffs. This year it’s another player registration issue that seen Tawa deducted five points, while Norths have also suffered a points deduction for their Colts side defaulting last weekend.

Clubs of course should know the basics. In Norths’ case the same penalty had also been applied to both Johnsonville and Wellington during the first round Swindale Shield, with the rule in existence to ensure that clubs are meeting the minimum requirements for participation in the Premier grades. In player registration cases it seems quite simple – if they aren’t registered then they shouldn’t be playing.

The rub is though it’s still very much a human process. Someone – invariably a club volunteer – takes on the job of trying to keep track of these things, and mistakes and oversights can and do happen. Club Rugby has interpreted that the heart of the Tawa issue here is that international clearance was obtained for the player concerned, with the club volunteer misinterpreting that this also meant the player was registered to play with WRFU. It’s a simple mistake – but worthy of five points off of a team, especially where there is no attempt to deceive and clearly a genuine mistake? 

Already this year another incident in a lower grade revealed that a player was registered under different names with two clubs, with both professing they were unaware of the duplicity.

It’s also worth noting that the union receives team lists for Premier games on the Friday beforehand. While these are for promotional purposes and there’s no guarantee that the team as provided is accurate on game day, isn’t it worth WRFU using these to just make sure any player appearing there for the first time is registered just to avoid situations like this? Being proactive rather than reactive?

What isn’t in doubt and apparently admitted by Tawa is that a breach – as defined as playing a player not registered with them – occurred. While it’s unlikely that this deduction will have the same effect as the most infamous eligibility issue in recent times - the 2013 saga that saw the Wests Roosters relegated during the off-season to the-then Senior 1 grade and essentially doomed them as a serious force in Wellington rugby – to put a dent like this into a team’s season because one person might have overlooked something seems fairly heavy-handed. Not that some form of penalty isn’t warranted – there needs to be as a deterrent to get things right – but is it really worth the equivalent of a bonus point win, when that same penalty has also been handed down to another team in another grade for referee abuse?

Consistency of punishment is clearly another thing to consider. Hard to directly compare different cases, such as this registration breach with that of an Upper Hutt Rams player last year, but all clubs also ask for is consistency in rulings.

Finally there is the human element. Right now there’s someone within the Tawa club who’s probably quite embarrassed and upset that their error has had this sort of result.

At a time when getting people to volunteer is becoming increasingly more difficult, decisions like this hardly encourage people to step up.