Premier Rugby's board will meet to discuss amending the regulations governing the postponement of matches because of bad weather after Wasps were last night exonerated for refusing to play Sale on a rain-sodden Edgeley Park at the end of last month.
A three-man Premier Rugby disciplinary panel, made up of the club chief executives Peter Wheeler, Ken Nottage and Mark Evans of Leicester, Gloucester and Harlequins respectively, spent four hours considering whether Wasps were in breach of the rules by walking out of the ground when Sale were willing to play and the match referee, David Rose, had passed the pitch fit.
The Wasps players were on their coach outside the ground eating pizza while spectators were still filing through the turnstiles and an 8,000 crowd was not told until after the scheduled kick-off that the game would not be going ahead. Sale fired off a strongly worded complaint to Premier Rugby demanding that action be taken against the Wycombe-based club who had called off two other games in the previous two seasons.
While the Premiership regulations leave the final decision on the condition of a playing surface to the referee, the International Rugby Board's law 1.6 stipulates that if a team has an objection about a ground they must tell the referee before a match starts.
It goes on: "The referee will attempt to resolve the issues but must not start a match if any part of the ground is considered to be dangerous."
Wasps were charged under three Premiership regulations, covering just cause, the referee having the final say and the range of punishments, which ranged from a fine to the deduction of points, but the IRB's law had an overriding effect, much to Sale's disgust.
"This decision is incredibly disappointing and will come as a shock to all Sale supporters who were at Edgeley Park on the night the game was cancelled," said the Sharks' chief executive, James Jennings. "We will make a further statement when we know the exact reasons for the panel's verdict."
Those reasons will be made public within 48 hours but the issue is on the agenda for Premier Rugby's board meeting today. Even though Wasps were found to have acted within their rights, the fact they only arrived at the ground 80 minutes before kick-off and left before another regulation, which allows a match to be played within 24 hours of a postponement, could be discussed amounted, and not just from Sale's perspective, to treating fans with contempt and officials will review the procedural process leading up to postponements.
