Accusations of ‘cheating’ following Hurricanes schoolboy rugby final default

An 11th hour default by Wellington’s Scots College in today’s Hurricanes regional final for a place in the national Top 4 has led to a furore online.

The default followed a week of drama in which the result of the semi-final between Feilding High School (FHS) and Scots was disputed on claims Scots had broken the front row replacement rules.

Scots won last weekend’s semi-final against FHS 43-35.

The controversy started around the 15 minute mark when a Scots front rower went down injured and had to leave the field. According to NZ Rugby safety regulations the player should have been replaced by another front rower, but instead Scots called uncontested scrums and replaced the prop with a fourth loose forward.

A source told DTNZ that the original team sheet provided by Scots contained a squad of 22 players. Under the NZ Rugby Domestic Safety Law Variations (DSLV) a minimum of five players ‘trained to play in the front row’ is required for a squad of that size. It is alleged however that the squad list was changed prior to the match, but communication errors meant there was confusion on the day as to whether Scots had the right to call uncontested scrums, or whether they should have forfeited the match for failing to field a suitably qualified replacement.

Multiple witnesses at the ground wrote on social media a replacement prop had stripped and ran onto the field, but then left the field before he could join the scrum, leading to accusations of cheating.

FHS appealed the result of the game, citing a breach of the front row replacement rules. The decision on that complaint was in turn appealed to a NZ Rugby independent Tribunal.

According to a statement by Scots principal Graeme Yule today on Facebook, both the complaint and its appeal were dismissed in Scots’ favour. Other reports state Feilding’s complaint was originally upheld.

A request by DTNZ to NZ Rugby for a copy of the Tribunal decision was unanswered at the time of this story’s publishing deadline.

The Tribunal’s decision ruling in Scots’ favour was not made available to the teams until late Thursday night. The decision caused an uproar online with Feilding supporters claiming it was a whitewash. A decision in Feilding’s favour would have seen them play Palmerston North Boy’s High School (PNBHS) in today’s Hurricanes final – a highly anticipated event as the two Manawatu rivals have met on only four occasions since World War II.

Sports commentator Hamish McKay said the Tribunal’s decision ‘was a sad day for the integrity of the teams who follow the rules’, while veteran sports journalist Peter Lampp called it ‘outrageous’.

But the drama did not end there. Last night rumours began circulating on social media that Scots had defaulted today’s final against PNBHS, a decision confirmed this morning by Yule’s Facebook statement.

Yule said the decision by coaching staff to default was ‘brave’, claiming it was a matter of player safety.

‘Last evening our coaching staff informed me that they were contacting the competition organisers to inform them that we were withdrawing from the Hurricanes final as we were unable to field the required team due to injuries sustained in the semi-final.’

Yule blamed the situation on declining player numbers. ‘This matter in many ways amplifies the issues and attitudes in the game that see declining player, coach, volunteer and referee numbers,’ he wrote.

News of the default created another furore online with Feilding supporters accusing Scots of abusing the judicial process to deny them a place in today’s final against PNBHS.

‘So it seems to have been confirmed that Scots College defaulted from [today’s] game. What I don’t understand is that they fought to win the appeal knowing that they couldn’t even a field a team if they won, so why fight the appeal and just let Feilding HS play?’ wrote college sports forum High School Top 200 on Facebook.

‘It really appears to me as though Scots College rugby administration and management… should have declared there [sic] inability to field front row players right from the start. They could have declared that again at the appeal hearing. The fact they decided to continue a process knowing full well their position, absolutely stinks of foul play.. in my opinion. There has to be some consequence for this unsportsmanlike behaviour by Scots College Rugby,’ wrote one commenter who summed up the sentiment of the online rugby community.

In explaining the default decision, Yule said ‘we did not know until yesterday [Friday] the final availability of our squad and secondly we needed to defend the complaint as it questioned the integrity of our coaching staff. We were delighted that the findings of the independent committee upheld their actions.’

Scots College is no stranger to controversy in its pursuit of schoolboy rugby glory. The private Presbytarian school located in Wellington’s Stathmore Park, historically not considered to be a ‘traditional’ rugby powerhouse, has allegedly spent vast sums of money in recent years on a campaign to bolster its 1st XV squad with imports and over-aged players. This week’s controversy has led to calls for greater scrutiny of the school’s ‘aggressive’ recruitment activities, with limits placed on the number of imports and over-aged players it can field in the 1st XV to one per season, as well as calls for other Wellington schools to boycott Scots until ‘it cleans up its act’.

A similar boycott against Auckland’s St. Kentigern’s College in 2019 led to a Code of Conduct governing the practise of poaching in Auckland 1st XV rugby.

PNBHS will now meet Southland Boy’s High School in the Top 4 semi-final next Friday.

Image credit: M. Cooper