RUGBY UNION : Davies told to hold his tongue
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Your support makes all the difference.John Davies, the Wales forward sent off against England last Saturday, will be judged by an appeal jury consisting of International Rugby Board members in Australia, France and Scotland, who will never actually sit down together to consider the case.
Davies, 26, protested his innocence before being suspended for 60 days for kicking Ben Clarke in the head and, though Clarke and other England players said Davies deserved to be dismissed, no one in the Welsh camp has admitted to anything more than carelessness.
Alan Hosie in Ayr, Marcel Martin in Paris and Roger Vanderfield in Sydney will examine the evidence presented by Davies, the referee, Didier Men, and touch-judge Patrick Robin as well as video footage of the incident before liaising to decide whether to uphold, reduce or rescind the ban. All three are members of the IRB's laws committee.
Davies, a Cardiganshire farmer, has been told by the Welsh Rugby Union to hold his tongue pending the appeal and he will have no opportunity to put his case to the world-wide panel. Yesterday, though, his team manager at Neath, the former Wales coach, Ron Waldron, spoke up for him. "The decision to ban him for so long over such an innocuous incident was ridiculous," said Waldron, who was Davies' tight-head prop predecessor for Wales 30 years ago. "I am appalled by it. The punishment should fit the crime but this has not happened here."
Waldron noted the disparity between Davies's sentence and that imposed on Olivier Merle by the French federation - exclusion from the England- France match - for the head-butt which caused another Wales prop, Ricky Evans, to fall and break his leg in Paris. "There is no justice in that," Waldron added.
Despite Davies's appeal and various injuries, the Welsh team announcement for the Scotland game on Saturday week will go ahead as planned today. It was confirmed yesterday that the Scots, whose Grand Slam odds have dropped from 66-1 to 6-1 after the defeat of France, would be without Ian Jardine after the centre had two plates inserted in his broken jaw.
The choice of host for the 1999 World Cup, to be decided at next month's IRB meeting in Bristol, will be between Wales and Australia after the withdrawal of France and Argentina from contention. The Welsh bid involves the other home unions; Australia's is in conjunction with New Zealand and Japan.
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