JRWC Ruling Suggests Multiple Citings Possible

I don't know Tim O'Connor but I read his tweets (@timoconnorbl). He describes himself as a barrister and rugby nut, which means he sometimes talks about the game's legal issues. He has a blog here:

http://rugbylaw.blogspot.co.uk/

It was through him I learned about how the IRB changed foul play regulations last year to allow them to intervene in Horwill's case. Here's the IRB press release:

http://www.irb.com/newsmedia/mediazone/pressrelease/newsid=2062371.html

And here's the regulation in question:

http://www.irb.com/mm/document/lawsregs/regulations/04/23/19/120531gfirbhandbook2012freg17eng.pdf

On a separate matter, he's just drawn attention to the publication of a decision made at the recent JRWC. Here it is:

http://www.irb.com/mm/document/tournament/home/02/06/76/12/130617jwc13appealdecisionluandebruin.pdf

Paragraph 12 is important. In short, A South African player was disciplined for a dangerous tackle. He maintained that he wasn't the only one involved with the tackle, and cited similar cases where players had been exonerated because their contribution to the outcome could not be clearly established.

The judgement here suggests that one way of getting to the bottom of such cases is to cite more than one player for an incident and apportion blame through an investigation.

It may be that players will not just be held accountable for their own actions, but also for how they combine with the actions of others.