How does your league handle disciplinary matters? Do you report them? Do you spell out exactly how suspensions are decided? What criteria do you use?

Not to say other leagues or unions don’t post their discipline decisions – quite a few do – but we found this example of a decision from the Iowa HS Rugby Association.

The IAHSRA posted their decision as well as video of the incident, describing in detail what the punished participants did.

Here’s the link to the decisions and video.

http://2012.iahsra.org/iahsra-discipline-ruling-lincoln-v-newton-dmacc-april-27-2012

One player was suspended for nine weeks for punching, another three months for entering the field of play when he shouldn’t have and assaulting a player.

While the transparency of the decision is of interest, so, too is the decision to punish the coach. This is an approach taken from hockey. The coach involved was suspended for three months for “enabling an environment” that allowed the incident to happen.

To quote the decision:

“Because the IAHSRA does not feel the USA Rugby Discipline Guidelines sufficiently address the needs of the High School game, the IAHSRA employed National Hockey League (NHL) Rule 70.10 with the intent that the Coach sanction should be equivalent to that player who violated rule 70.1 (i.e. Leaving the Bench). Therefore, Coach Ibeling’s suspension is set to be of equivalent length to that of Mr. Brown."