James Horwill cited for stamping

[Inside Shoulder]

Cop that IRB!

Mew will be in the Ecuadorian embassy quick smart

 

[GaffaCHinO]

Cue IRB appeal #2 or will that make it 3

 

[cyclopath]

Great news.
Can sanity prevail please - no baiting of anyone in this thread.
There's been enough.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

What a debacle. All that and no change to the outcome. There needs to be some reform of this whole process for mine.

 

[Set piece magic]

Bet you 100 bucks this thread gets locked quick smart before the result shitfight kicks off

 

[Bullrush]

Reading the handbook, I'm still struggling to see how the appeal was heard by a judicial officer rather than an appeals committee. But my attention span of 8 seconds may be the problem.

This looks to be decided upon, again, by the Host union.

17.7.2 The Host Union shall, when required, appoint and have available an

Appeal Committee comprising of three members or a single Appeal

Officer to adjudicate on appeals from decisions of Disciplinary

Committees or Judicial Officers.

If nothing else, this whole drama has been great for me personally. Now I have a much better understanding of how the judiciary/disciplinary/appeals processes and appointments etc are all done. The old IRB-conspiracy theories are hard to really defend when you have a better understanding of what the actual Laws and Regulations are.

 

[Bullrush]

Bet you 100 bucks this thread gets locked quick smart before the result shitfight kicks off

Not for mine.

Do I think he should of got suspended? Yes.

But the correct processes and Laws were followed and it's come to this conclusion. It's like an actual game of rugby really - you win some and you lose some but at the end of the day, it's just a game

 

[oztimmay]

AAP article on this.

http://www.foxsports.com.au/rugby/w...ict/story-e6frf55l-1226672834137#.UdI7ZvmLBjQ

 

[gold heart]

awesome news ... go big fella..... things are looking good for us on saturday!

 

[Mr Doug]

ABC TV midday news reported: "There were no errors at law surrounding the initial decision"!!

I'm happy for the coaches, players, support staff, the fans, and of course James and his family.

Now that they've 'thrown out the rubbish' let's get on with the PMT (Pre-match tension)!!

 

[Sully]

We won't be closing the thread but we will be following very closely. As cyclopath said no baiting no trolling!

 

[GaffaCHinO]

QANTAS WALLABIES CAPTAIN JAMES HORWILL CLEARED TO PLAY

Qantas Wallabies captain, James Horwill has been cleared to play in Saturday night’s third and deciding Test against the British & Irish Lions.

Independent Appeal Officer Graeme Mew, from Canada, this morning declined to uphold an IRB Appeal brought against Horwill after he was cleared of a foul play charge at a previous judicial hearing.

The Qantas Wallabies captain was initially cleared by Judicial Officer Nigel Hampton QC (Quade Cooper) who found that on the balance of probabilities he could not find an intentional or deliberate action of stamping or trampling.

Horwill was alleged to have stamped or trampled on British & Irish Lions’ lock, Alun Wyn Jones, in the third minute of the opening Test of the DHL Australia 2013 Lions Tour in Brisbane on Saturday 22 June.

Mr Mew noted that “for the appeal to succeed the IRB would have to establish that there was some misapprehension of law or principle by the Judicial Officer or that his decision was so clearly wrong or manifestly unreasonable that no Judicial Officer could have reached the conclusion that he did.”

Following a two and a half hour appeal hearing conducted by video conference, and extensive deliberation, Mr Mew concluded that the Judicial Officer had not made any errors of law or principle.

“There was sufficient evidence upon which a reasonable Judicial Officer could have reached the decision that was made,” Mr Mew said.

“Accordingly, it could not be said that the Judicial Offer was manifestly wrong or that the interests of justice otherwise required his decision be overturned.”

Mr Mew also stated that the IRB's appeal had been properly taken in the discharge of its responsibilities to promote and ensure player welfare and to protect the image and the reputation of the game.

 

[daz]

Bet you 100 bucks this thread gets locked quick smart before the result shitfight kicks off

Given cyclopath has issued a heads-up already, I suspect the padlock is being oiled for use the second the thread gets out of line.

 

[hawktrain]

Unbelievable. That's a very dangerous precedent.

At least it means there won't be another important player missing the third test. It deserves to have two teams as close to full strength as possible.

 

[Bruwheresmycar]

Now that this is over let's just hope people apply the same faith they have in this IRB appointed official to deal with an incident, as they do in the referee's on Saturday.

 

[Sully]

Press conference feed just went live on foxsport.
http://www.foxsports.com.au/rugby/w...ict/story-e6frf55l-1226672834137#.UdI-8edmjAS

 

[Bullrush]

Except that Horwill isn't actually being charged again.

The IRB are appealing the decision made by the judicial officer which they are entitled to do under the Laws of the game. In some respect, it it seems to me that it is actually the judicial officer's decision that is on trial. From what I've read about the Thompson case (which followed the same process as this is), the appeal looks at the how the decision was made, what was taken into consideration and what wasn't and how the judicial officer came by his decision. Which may be why an appeal takes longer than the first hearing. The appeal officer doesn't just review the incident but also the the transcript, evidence etc from the original hearing.

From what I've read, the appeal officer wouldn't just need to find Horwill guilty, he would also need to find where the original judicial officer was wrong with his original judgement of the case.

Honestly, I wish people had taken some time to actually read the Laws and actually looked at the process the IRB was following rather than slagging them off instinctively, jumping on the IRB conspiracy theories.

From @GaffaCHinO's post above:

Mr Mew noted that “for the appeal to succeed the IRB would have to establish that there was some misapprehension of law or principle by the Judicial Officer or that his decision was so clearly wrong or manifestly unreasonable that no Judicial Officer could have reached the conclusion that he did.”

Following a two and a half hour appeal hearing conducted by video conference, and extensive deliberation, Mr Mew concluded that the Judicial Officer had not made any errors of law or principle.

“There was sufficient evidence upon which a reasonable Judicial Officer could have reached the decision that was made,” Mr Mew said.

“Accordingly, it could not be said that the Judicial Offer was manifestly wrong or that the interests of justice otherwise required his decision be overturned.”

Again - it seems that the appeal has a stronger emphasis on how the Judicial Officer came by his judgement rather than on the initial incident itself.

 

[vidiot]

This looks to be decided upon, again, by the Host union.

As I understand it the appointments for this series were made under the IRBs 'merit-based' system (17.5). And there is a fair contradictory detail about appeals in Reg 18 re the appeals committee.

 

[nugget]

Press conference feed just went live on foxsport.
http://www.foxsports.com.au/rugby/w...ict/story-e6frf55l-1226672834137#.UdI-8edmjAS

cool, watching now. Give us a wave Sully

 

[JSRF10]

Some common sense reached here, I'm delighted the IRBs banana republic style court didn't reach the verdict they wanted