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Tonight, the Monday before Saturday’s crucial third Test between the Wallabies and the British and Irish Lions, the IRB is deliberately perverting its judicial appeal processes to ensure that the Wallaby captain James Horwill, a hero of the Melbourne Test with his play and his captaincy, cannot take the field in Sydney.
This is an unacceptable interference into the outcome of an engrossing Test series by rugby’s governing body which should be exercising its powers for the benefit of all its stakeholders, and not for the influential rugby figures who run the Lions franchise.
The Lions management has denied that it has approached the IRB to re-open Horwill’s case for tonight’s hearing.
But it is common gossip among the rugby writers gathered in Australia for the Lions series that the IRB has been pressured by rugby heavyweights with a connection one way or another with the Lions to pursue Horwill and ensure he won’t play on Saturday night.
The British media, as well, has joined in enthusiastically on this campaign.
Stuart Barnes, for instance, was absolutely sure that Horwill will be found guilty of stamping the head of Alun Wyn Jones in the first Test at Brisbane and that he would and should be put out of rugby for some time.
His line of attack on Horwill, and his absolute confidence that the IRB will find him guilty suggests (to me, at least) some sort of inside wink-wink, no names no pack drill briefing from IRB or possibly Lions people about what is going to happen tonight.
Let’s start at the beginning. At the time of the alleged incident in the Brisbane Test, there was no indication that anything untoward had happened. There were no complaints for the Lions camp.
The citing official, an Australian, brought the matter up the morning after the Test.
A hearing was held by the IRB’s own judicial offer, a New Zealand QC, Nigel Hampton. Hampton spent four hours hearing evidence and going through the film evidence from nine cameras, frame by frame.
Hampton found no evidence that the alleged stamping was deliberate or intentional. Anyone looking at the footage would come to the same conclusion.
Horwill himself, a honest player, claims that he had no knowledge about what happened and was surprised to be told that he was cited for something that came as a complete surprise and shock to him.
Instead of accepting its own judicial officer’s considered decision, the IRB then took the extraordinary step of appointing another judicial official, the Canadian Graeme Mew, to re-open the case.
Bill Pulver, the chief executive of the ARU, makes this valid point: “The IRB appointed a judicial officer, who gave a ruling. The IRB has now decided to appeal that ruling and appointed a new judicial officer.
“The new judicial officer has two options: he can say the IRB was wrong for appealing or he can find James Horwill guilty. The process is problematic.”
This is being kind. The process is being manipulated to ensure an outcome that is favourable to the Lions and hurtful for the Wallabies.
We do not know what the basis of the appeal is. Why the secrecy?
The appeals process that is being used was brought in last year. The new regulations require a committee of two to five people. Why is this a one-man committee?
Why has the IRB’s CEO, the Australian Brett Gosper, been so silent on the issue?
There is something very smelly about this whole matter which the feisty rugby writer for The Australian, Wayne Smith, correctly suggests involves the Wallaby captain appearing before a Kangaroo Court.
For Mr Mew either repudiates the IRB’s decision to appeal a ruling by one of its own judicial officers, or he repudiates a decision made by a judicial officer who is a student of rugby, a QC and, by definition, an expert in interpreting what a law stands for.
There is another aspect of this case that is very worrying. This is the veil of secrecy that the IRB has lowered around the matter. We do not know what the grounds for renewing the case against Horwill are. We don’t know the supposed errors of law the QC Hampton is supposed to have made.
To me this raises the issue of whether the IRB has considered the overall legality of what it is doing. Admittedly, the IRB claims that the Mew decision cannot be appealed. But it seems to be violating its own regulations by insisting on a one-man committee.
If the Mew committee finds against Horwill, I hope that the ARU will take the IRB to the Equity Court in NSW for a determination on whether Horwill, and indeed Hampton QC, have received natural justice in these insidious proceedings.
For too long, the IRB has been not much more than a lobby group that looks after the interests of the so-called Home Unions, the unions that provide the players for the British and Irish Lions.
Enough is more than enough. It’s time for the IRB’s bully-boy hostility to the Australian and New Zealand rugby to be called to account. And the best way of starting this process is to ensure that the charges against James Horwill are cleared, one way or another.