Rugby looks to NRL to overhaul code of conduct
Date March 26, 2015 - 10:00PM
Georgina Robinson
Chief Rugby Reporter
The Australian Rugby Union is plotting the biggest overhaul of its disciplinary process since the game turned professional, and guess which rival code it has looked to for inspiration?
Rugby league.
That's right. The ARU believes the balance of power on disciplinary issues has shifted too far into the hands of the well-organised Rugby Union Players' Association (RUPA) and wants to make a significant correction, turning to a rival code with, let's face it, plenty of experience with misbehaving footballers, for inspiration.
The two parties traded draft documents last year and – not surprisingly – there was daylight between them.
They agree on one thing. The present code of conduct, which covers every player from grassroots to elite rugby, is a cumbersome catch-all that often leads to disciplinary issues – and ugly headlines – being dragged out for weeks on end. Think the Kurtley Beale texting scandal last year, or Quade Cooper's "toxic" episode in 2012. No one emerged unscarred from either saga, least of all the game of rugby.
But that's where the agreement ends.
RUPA's proposal, drafted last April after former Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie went off-grid with his disciplining of 15 players on the Wallabies' spring tour in 2013, breaks down the broad charge of "bringing the game into disrepute" and spells out a range of offences and potential penalties, giving administrators a road map of sorts to follow when players say or do stupid, offensive or illegal things.
The ARU's document is a radical departure from the present system and effectively works on an assumption of guilt until innocence can be proven. It was sent to RUPA nine months later, in January, and is modelled on the NRL's code of conduct. It would give the ARU the power to name its price and penalty when a player transgresses, and gives the player only the right to appeal the sanction.
Not surprisingly, the ARU's draft arrived at RUPA's door very soon after Beale was fined $45,000 for sending an offensive text message to former Wallabies business manager Di Patston. ARU boss Bill Pulver pushed strongly for contract termination but the case fell apart in front of an independent tribunal – a condition guaranteed under the present code of conduct but endangered under the model being proposed by the ARU.
It is a case of paperwork at 10 paces right now for the powerful players' association and the ARU, with RUPA unlikely to agree to what it perceives as a serious erosion of players' rights.
But two recent cases suggest there is a rare appetite for compromise in Australian rugby. The handling of the Karmichael Hunt affair – in which the Queensland Rugby Union, ARU and RUPA worked behind closed doors to agree on a six-week ban and $30,000 fine – is worlds away from the trench warfare of the Beale-Patston scandal. That ugly episode culminated in the resignation of a Wallabies coach and is now poised to drag the ARU through the courts.
This week's swift and fair response to Jacques Potgieter's use of a homophobic slur during the Waratahs' win over the Brumbies is another example of what can happen when the relevant parties are prepared to collaborate. It is no surprise that it was brokered on one side by former RUPA boss Greg Harris, newly arrived as chief executive at the Waratahs. But it equally highlighted the arrival of pragmatism at the ARU and a willingness to think holistically about what is fair, what is right and what is good for the game.
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/un...26-1m6qmh.html
