The disciplinary hearing against Chiefs No.8 Sione Lauaki was on Monday dismissed on technical grounds as the citing for a dangerous tackle was not received within the prescribed 12 hour period after the match ended.

The hearing took place at the offices of the South African Rugby Union in Newlands, Cape Town. In exceptional circumstances, the Judicial Officer (JO) can allow citings that were made more than 12 hours after the end of the game. The JO in this case, Dekker Govender, could not find exceptional circumstances to allow the hearing to continue.

Lauaki was cited for dangerous play after a high tackle on Bulls winger Bryan Habana in the first half of last Saturday’s Vodacom Super 14 match at Loftus Versfeld. The Chiefs player was yellow carded by match referee Craig Joubert. The Bulls won the game 33-27.

The high tackle on Habana was a particularly heavy one. In fact it would be hard to imagine a worse high tackle. This sort of action bvrings the whole citing process into question.

The citing commissioner for this case was Luvuyo Matsha.