World Rugby says it wants discipline to be clean, predictable, fair. Regulation 17 and Appendix 1 are supposed to make that happen. Fixed entry points. A mandatory three-step process. A checklist of factors to weigh.

On paper, it looks watertight.

But step away from the handbook and into the real world – into the cases, the hearings, the slow‑motion replays – and the picture shifts. Similar acts. Different outcomes. Players confused. Supporters angry. Pundits filling the gaps.

The system promises consistency. It doesn’t always deliver it.

The architecture: a neat system, at least on the page

The blueprint is simple enough.

Under Regulation 17.19, every disciplinary panel must follow the same three steps:

1. Seriousness and entry point
   First, they assess how bad the act of foul play is. They decide whether it sits at the lower‑end, mid‑range or top‑end. To get there, they work through a list:
   – Intent or recklessness
   – Nature of the act and body part used
   – Injury or impact on the victim
   – Vulnerability of the victim
   – Provocation, retaliation, self‑defence
   – Premeditation, completion or attempt Each offence type has its tariff. For physical abuse under Law 9.12 – including eye contact – the current table is stark: intentional contact with eye(s), reckless contact, and contact with the eye area all have distinct entry points and ranges World Rugby – Regulation 17 Appendix 1.
2. Aggravating factors
   If the player has a poor disciplinary record, or if the panel thinks a deterrent is needed, they can add weeks on top of that entry point.
3. Mitigating factors (up to 50% off)
   Then they look for reasons to cut the ban: guilty plea, good prior record, age or inexperience, remorse, and conduct at the hearing. If they find them, they can lop off up to half of the entry‑point suspension.

It’s orderly. It’s written down. It’s mandatory.

The problem is not the structure. The problem is what people do with it.

The 2018 reset: when the law changes but memory didn’t

One source of confusion is historical. The rules changed, but the game’s memory didn’t.

Before 1 January 2018, there was a single category: “contact with the eye(s) or the eye area” – and the lower‑end entry point was 12 weeks Rugby and the Law – Kockott. That’s the framework under which:

• Chris Ashton got 10 weeks in 2016.
• Kyle Sinckler got seven weeks in 2017, his 12‑week entry cut down by mitigation for a guilty plea and remorse.

Then World Rugby rewired the grid. From 2018, three tiers:

• Intentional contact with eye(s) – low‑end 12 weeks
• Reckless contact with eye(s) – low‑end 6 weeks
• Contact with eye area – low‑end 4 weeks

So when Rory Kockott was cited in December 2018, he fell under the new regime. The independent committee found “contact with the eye area”, applied the four‑week lower‑end entry point, then sliced it to three weeks for his guilty plea and good conduct at the hearing Rugby and the Law – Kockott.

Side‑by‑side, it looks absurd. Ashton 10. Sinckler seven. Kockott three. The footage? To many eyes, not worlds apart. Fingers on or near eyes. Players on the ground. All the hallmarks of an offence the sport claims to loathe.

From a regulatory standpoint, there’s a clean answer: different rulebooks. Before and after 2018. From the stands, that neat distinction means nothing. People remember the bans, not the version numbers of Regulation 17.

Consistency, in the end, is not just about internal logic. It’s about whether, over time, the sanctions make sense together.

Right now, they don’t always.

The real battleground: intent, recklessness and the entry point

Even inside the new framework, one choice changes everything: which category the panel picks.

For eye‑related offences, it’s a three‑way fork in the road:

• Intentional contact with eye(s)
• Reckless contact with eye(s)
• Contact with eye area

From there, another fork: lower‑end, mid‑range, or top‑end. That single cluster of decisions controls the range. Four weeks. Eight. Twelve. Or much more.

And those decisions are subjective.

Look again at Kockott. The video shows his hand on Chris Cloete’s face, fingers spread. Cloete is on the floor, pinned, unable to protect himself. Under World Rugby’s own list, that’s “vulnerability” – a seriousness factor that should pull a sanction up, not down Rugby and the Law – Kockott.

Yet the panel chose the lowest category – simple “contact with eye area” – at the lower‑end entry point. Four weeks, reduced to three.

The legal analysis is blunt. There was enough there, it argues, to prove at least recklessness, possibly intent. At the very least, the mid‑range entry should have been triggered. It wasn’t.

Now take Eben Etzebeth’s red card in Cardiff in November 2025. Two minutes left. A scuffle at the breakdown. The TV feed follows the ball, then cuts back. Alex Mann claims an eye‑gouge. The TMO steps in. The replay is clear enough that referee Luc Ramos delivers his verdict over the stadium mic: “You have a clear finger in the eye, so for me, it’s a permanent red card”

That part is simple. Law 9.12. Red card. Off you go.

The hearing is not simple. As Planet Rugby pointed out in its law discussion, the sanction grid reads like this for eye offences: low‑end 4 weeks, mid‑range 8, top‑end 12+, with a maximum going all the way up to four years Planet Rugby. Etzebeth’s previously clean international record, the possibility of provocation, and a post‑match apology are all factors the panel can weigh in mitigation Irish Times.

The key question is not whether there was a thumb near Mann’s eye. It’s how the panel reads Etzebeth’s state of mind:

• If they say intentional contact with eye(s), the low‑end is 12 weeks.
• If they say reckless, it starts at 6.
• If they downgrade to eye area, it’s 4.

Three labels. Three starting points. One piece of footage.

That’s where consistency frays. Not because the rules are vague, but because intent lives in the split second between two frames – and reasonable people, even seasoned judicial officers, can see different things in that gap.

Mitigation: rational on paper, erratic in the real world

The second crack in the system is mitigation.

World Rugby’s rule is generous: once the entry point is set, panels can reduce by up to 50% for off‑field mitigation Planet Rugby. The list is familiar:

• Early acknowledgement of guilt
• Good disciplinary record
• Youth or inexperience
• Conduct at the hearing
• Remorse to the victim
• Any other relevant factor

In theory, this is fair. A player with 15 clean years and an instant guilty plea is not the same as a repeat offender who lies to the panel.

In practice, the effect is often to sand the edges off serious bans.

Kyle Sinckler’s 12‑week entry was cut to seven on the strength of his plea and remorse. Kockott’s four‑week entry dropped to three, partly because of “good conduct at the hearing” Rugby and the Law – Kockott.

That last factor has drawn particular fire. As Ben Cisneros argues, civility in a disciplinary hearing should be the floor, not a reason to knock time off a ban. It has nothing to do with player welfare, or with the actual offence.

The result is a pattern the public recognises all too well: a stern‑sounding entry point, softened by a ritual recital of mitigation until the ban dips into territory that looks lenient for what the pictures showed.

The rules allow it. The optics are terrible.

A GPS with human traffic at every junction

Think of World Rugby’s sanctioning system as a modern GPS.

It sets the speed limits: the entry points in Appendix 1.
It plans the route: Regulation 17.19’s three‑step process.
It puts the same map in every car: referees, citing commissioners, judicial officers, all following one framework.

But the first decision isn’t made by the GPS. It’s made by the driver.

What kind of road is this?

• A smooth highway: “contact with eye area”, lower‑end, four weeks.
• A rough back road: “reckless contact with eye(s)”, six weeks.
• A mountain pass in a storm: “intentional contact with eye(s)”, 12 weeks and up.

Once that choice is made, the rest is automatic. Aggravation, mitigation, final figure.

Change the choice, change everything.

So when one panel sees Kockott’s fingers as a low‑end eye‑area case, and another sees Etzebeth’s thumb as reckless or intentional, both panels can truthfully say they followed Regulation 17 to the letter. The GPS worked perfectly.

The journeys, and the arrival times, are still wildly different.

What would true consistency look like?

If World Rugby really wants the punishment to match both the law and the game’s instincts, it needs to do more than publish tables.

1. Tighten the boundaries between offence categories

Right now, “intentional”, “reckless” and “eye area” bleed into each other.

World Rugby could:

• Introduce presumptions for certain scenarios – for example, fingers entering the orbital area of a grounded opponent start at least as reckless contact with eye(s), unless there is strong evidence otherwise.
• Define more clearly when “eye area” applies – as a genuine residual category for doubt about whether the eye itself was contacted, not a soft landing for uncomfortable footage.

That would make it harder to slide borderline cases down into the least serious label.

2. Trim back mitigation in serious cases

World Rugby should consider:

• Cutting maximum mitigation from 50% to around one‑third for top‑tier offences like eye contact and dangerous head contact.
• Striking “good conduct at the hearing” from the list of positive factors – reserving hearing behaviour only for aggravation where it’s bad.
• Forcing panels to spell out, in public decisions, exactly why they granted maximum mitigation in any high‑end case.

The aim is not to end mercy. It is to stop the appearance, and sometimes the reality, of serious bans being cut to something closer to a slap on the wrist.

3. Turn case law into a real guide, not an afterthought

At the moment, “precedent” in rugby discipline is informal. Commentators and lawyers string together Ashton, Hartley, Sinckler, Kockott, Mapimpi, Etzebeth. Panels don’t consistently do the same.

World Rugby and its tournaments could fix that by:

• Publishing a searchable database of written decisions, with full reasoning, offence categories and final sanctions.
• Encouraging panels to explain in writing how their decision lines up with, or departs from, those earlier cases Irish Times, The Guardian.

That wouldn’t erase judgement calls. But it would turn them into a visible, evolving body of law.

The bottom line: solid scaffolding, shaky outcomes

So, how effectively do World Rugby’s updated sanctioning guidelines ensure consistent punishment?

They do standardise the process. They give the game a shared language. They make it possible to see how a panel, step by step, got from a red card to a number of weeks.

But in the high‑stakes world of eye contact and head impacts, they do not guarantee that like cases will end alike.

• The 2018 re‑categorisation split old offences into new boxes, but never reconciled the new scale with the old memories.
• The key classification – intentional vs reckless vs simple eye‑area contact – is inherently subjective and hugely powerful.
• A broad mitigation regime lets panels chop theoretically tough sanctions down to sizes that often jar with what people saw on their screens.

In the end, the guidelines are exactly what as described: a sophisticated GPS, designed to get everyone to the same place – a fair, safe, predictable ban.

But as long as human judgement decides what kind of road we’re on in the first place, and how much of a “discount” the driver earns after the fact, the arrival times will keep changing.

The structure is there. The consistency is not.