The Wallabies’ defence for Reece Hodge will be based on challenging the citing commissioner’s decision that his tackle on Peceli Yato was a “clear and obvious” red card offence, and arguing the four match officials had dealt it with accurately.
But after initial hope the matter would be resolved at a judiciary hearing as early as Monday night, World Rugby announced late on Monday that the hearing would be held on Wednesday in Tokyo at 3pm local time.
World Rugby and Rugby Australia had been working towards confirming a hearing date and the global body announced the timing on Monday evening, saying it was set down at Rugby AU's request.
Hodge was cited for "an act of foul play contrary to Law 9.13 (dangerous tackle)".
Exactly when the Hodge hearing will occur remains unclear - Rugby Australia and World Rugby are still in discussions - but the Wallabies hit an early hiccup when they had to arrange for new legal representation, given their pre-arranged, on-standby lawyer was called away on business.
After the initial wave of media coverage that Phil Kearns believes influenced World Rugby’s decision to cite Hodge, support started to emerge for the Wallabies winger; with ex-Test players and coaches, including Clive Woodward and Jonny Wilkinson casting doubt on whether it should have been a send-off offence.
For a player to be cited, a citing commissioner must determine that an act of foul play met the threshold for a red card; i.e was sufficiently serious that the referee should have sent the player from the field.
After Hodge made his tackle, Fijian captain Dom Waqaniburotu asked referee Ben O’Keeffe to refer it to the TMO, and O’Keeffe told the Fiji skipper soon after that it had been reviewed by TMO Rowan Kitt and he was happy with it.
Talking to media on Monday, Cheika pointed to the elements of the Wallabies’ defence for Hodge at the hearing.
They will challenge the citation - in that the Hodge tackle did not meet the red-card threshold - and further argue, as per World Rugby pre-tournament message to coaches in Japan, that it was not a “clear and obvious” error by the four match officials in failing to send Hodge from the field.
World Rugby have recently tweaked the laws around citations allowing teams to challenge the citing commissioner’s decision that an offence met the red-card threshold. Previously, you could not.
“(World Rugby citing commissioner manager) Steven Hinds mentioned that if a team of four had dealt with it it on the day that it would have to be clear and obvious for it to get cited, so they're working together as a team, they were talking about calibration, I think was their buzz word and I think it was pretty clear that all the officials dealt with it on the day,” Cheika said.
“I think if you've seen from the conjecture around and the majority of footballers, rugby players from the past who have have said it's not an illegal tackle, that it's not clear and obvious even in that point of view, so I was surprised that it was cited.”
Cheika said he believed Hodge had a good case to argue.
Here they are in sequence. Arms in tackle, high, flat footed, yellow. pic.twitter.com/dMrRAqHTu1
— Morgan Turinui (@MorganTurinui) September 23, 2019
"I'm always going to be biased, I'm his coach, but I do think if you look at all the bits and pieces, like I mentioned to you before about the original citing, the rules have slightly changed around what you can and can't compete with at the judiciary now, I think have been good changes by World Rugby, to give teams the opportunity to challenge different things at he judiciary hearing so I think we'll have plenty of opportunity to do that,” Cheika said.
Cheika said he wasn’t concerned about World Rugby making an example of Hodge after a concerted push this year to eliminate dangerous contact with the head and neck.
"I don’t (think that), I was really impressed by the way they spoke, they guys at their thing last uesday, the different people in charge of the three different bodies said they were working together and they also talked a lot about empathy of the game and understanding the empathy of the game as opposed to coming over with a big stick, that was their natural approach,” Cheika said.
"Now, the Scottish citing commissioner of the day, I'm not quite sure why that got cited but it is there now and we'll just try and deal with it best we can.”
Although Jordan Petaia won’t be fit by this weekend, Cheika said there was ample depth to cover any outcome but he said he wasn’t yet entertaining a defeat at the judiciary.
