Van der mervha red

[duncanb]

Thanks. It's much easier to understand the decision having read that. To me, the only source of contention is the panel's assessment of the level of danger. I guess that as the forearm made contact with the head, it's couldn't be considered low end, but a bit more clarity on this would have been nice. All in all, it seems fair enough and I don't really see how anyone could quibble too much, but I doubt any of the "game's gone soft" brigade will bother to read the judgement or try to understand the citing process and the judgement will be wrong for reasons that they won't be able to articulate.

Yes agree alot of time these are missed, but cannot complain really.
Thing I noted most was Steve Diamond decided to speak for DVDM as English is not his main language , yet seem VDM interviewed loads of times on TV.
Wonder what his afrikaans.

 

[RedruthRFC]

Thing I noted most was Steve Diamond decided to speak for DVDM as English is not his main language , yet seem VDM interviewed loads of times on TV.

It struck me as weird when I read, but forgot about it as I read the rest of the judgement. The wording appears carefully chosen, while I'm sure it's true to say that English isn't his first language the salient question is whether he's sufficiently fluent to communicate effectively. If players are allowed to have advocates speak on their behalf if they wish as a matter of course, fair enough. If not, I fail to see why he was granted this privilage and would say that the panel failed to demonstrate sufficient diligence. This was the first video that a YouTube search threw up for me:

 

[Aimless ponderings]

The club supply legal representation!!.
And I'm fairly sure that they are fully conversant with the queen's English.
As I'm equally sure DVDM is.

 

[duncanb]

Absolutely no problem with players having representatives, just odd playing the language card not that it makes any difference in the hearing or outcome.