Things did go fairly badly wrong not only physically but psychologically. FIRFU covered it up.big mervyn wrote:I think in the context of that particular incident, i.e. a non contact training session, POC might have been on shakier ground if things had gone badly wrong.UlsterNo9 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 01, 2022 4:04 pm Common law principle ‘Volenti no fit injuria’. This translates roughly as ‘to a willing person injury is not done’. The term ‘voluntary assumption of risk’ is also used to describe this principle.
Essentially what this means is that when you step onto a rugby field you voluntarily take on the risk that things will happen that occur in games of rugby.
This does not mean that there is nothing that happens during a game of rugby that couldn't be charged as an assault. It really needs to be something that is reasonably foreseeable in the context of a game of rugby. Being punched is definitely foreseeable, to the extent any decent legal person would argue that particular scales of punishment are set out within the laws of the game for players who punch another player.
This is not to say that a player punching another could never be charged with assault. Again it could come down to whether the injured party wanted to press charges.
I'm even not sure if a punch is "foreseeable" in the modern pro game. When is the last time you saw somebody land one on somebody's jaw?
Plenty have been charged with on pitch assaults. However as, said, charges must be pressed.