Tigers could add to Rabeni's woes
July 26 2008
Seru Rabeni's woes are set to continue as Leicester Tigers have announced they will hold their own disciplinarily meeting following the Fijian's latest ban.
Rabeni, who was already serving a 14-week ban for eye gouging last season, had a further nine weeks added to the original suspension this week.
The additional punishment means the Tigers will be without their Fiji star for the first seven games of the coming season, including the opening Heineken Cup clash against the Ospreys.
"We have spoken with Seru but we need to do a disciplinary process as far as the club is concerned," said Tigers CEO Peter Wheeler.
"We will do that now. He has made himself unavailable for the team by his actions.
"When we would have expected him to be taking a full part in pre-season training, he is not going to be available, so we need to decide what to do about that."
Not surprisingly, Tigers are none too pleased to be without him again following the ban dished out by a disciplinary hearing in Bristol.
"You have a squad and a wage cap. So you can only have a certain number of people on the staff," Wheeler continued.
"If anyone is not available, through injury or suspension, it hits the coaches' plans and puts pressure on other members of the squad."
The additional ban was meted out after Rabeni played in three sevens tournaments in Bath, East Grinstead and Fiji, despite being banned.
And, while he may have thought he was clear to play because they were for charity, Wheeler says he should have sought advice.
"It was silly of him not to ask about the rules. We made it very clear to him when he was banned that it meant all games," he said.
"I think he was under pressure at the tournaments because he had entered a team long before the ban was in place.
"He may have come under pressure from the organisers and the team to play, and was perhaps encouraged to believe that charity tournaments out of season did not count.
"Seru is a quiet sort of guy. He was disappointed.
"He has been off an awful lot the last year and I guess having served what he thought was his time he was looking forward to getting back into the game. Now he is not going to be back until mid-October."