Undefeated Carlsbad Thunder will not be able to play in Southern California’s Varsity White playoffs because the team suited up two players who required a waiver to participate, and failed to get them a waiver until well into the season.

Here are the facts as we understand them:

SoCal’s Varsity White division is a single-school division, but allows up to 30% of the players involved to be from another school as long as that other school does not have a rugby team.

Carlsbad has followed this rule, and currently is well above the 70% minimum of players coming from Carlsbad HS. However, two of their longtime players come from San Dieguito Academy, and San Dieguito formed a team this season.

The SoCal Varsity White season starts in early December. Carlsbad’s first league game was December 9 against Mission Vista. But the SoCal Green season, where new teams play 7s, doesn’t start until January 7. However, according to San Dieguito Head Coach Tavin Tyler, he filed with the Southern California Youth Rugby Association (SCYRA) in September of 2016 (confirmed with SCYRA) that San Dieguito would have a team for the 2016-17 season.

Carlsbad opened up the season December 9 against Mission Vista apparently unaware that San Dieguito had a team, and thus two of the Carlsbad players would need waivers to participate. According to sources, Carlsbad coaches were informed before the Mission Vista game that they needed the waivers.

Carslbad went on to beat Mission Vista, and then Fallbrook a week later. Then on January 6, they played San Pasqual and won 29-17 to move to 3-0. It was then that SCYRA issued forfeits for those three games. After that punishment, Carlsbad applied for the necessary waivers, which were quickly approved.

During the ensuing rulings and appeals, the Mission Vista forfeit was overturned because, it turned out, Carlsbad Director of Coaching Josh Williams had received some incorrect information related to the waivers. However, a request to make the waiver approvals retroactive was denied on the basis that it is incumbent on member teams to monitor the leagues and follow the rules, and Carlsbad played those games with ineligible players.

So, even though the players in question had been with Carlsbad for a long time, and were signed on with Carlsbad long before San Dieguito ever played a game, they needed the waivers filed before December 9.

Oddly, during the appeals process, Williams pointed out some infractions committed by other teams in the league. One of the results of this is that Fallbrook, which would have been in 1st place after Carlsbad’s forfeits, was also charged with a forfeit loss in their game against Carlsbad (that’s right, both teams lost that game), and that forfeit, with its mandatory -1 bonus point, cost them a chance at 1st place, leaving the door open for San Pasqual. 

 

The Upshot

So if there were no forfeits, Carlsbad would be leading the Varsity White San Diego North with a 5-0 record (one gam was not played due to weather):

Carlsbad 5-0

Fallbrook 3-2 (Fallbrook leads San Marcos on bonus points and San Pasqual on head-to-head)

San Pasqual 3-2

San Marcos 3-2

Mission Vista 2-3

Rancho Bernardo 1-3

Alta Vista 0-5

 

However, with the two forfeits for Carlsbad, and the one for Fallbrook, the league looks like this:

San Pasqual 4-1

Fallbrook 3-2 (Fallbrook leads San Marcos on head-to-head)

San Marcos 3-2 (San Marcos leads Carlsbad on bonus points)

Carlsbad 3-2 

Mission Vista 2-3

Rancho Bernard 1-4

Alta Vista 0-5

 

The sad thing is that this was a hugely competitive league, and the final rundown to the playoff should have been an exciting home stretch for everyone. The mechanism exists within SCYRA to allow players to be grandfathered in with an existing team if they want. That mechanism just needs to be used promptly.

Going forward, there’s a growing feeling that maybe SCYRA should change how teams are notified about changes in the league that affect a player’s eligibility, and also in perhaps providing various levels of punishment for different types of infractions. Right now, if you break a small rule or a big rule, you forfeit a game.

For fans of Carlsbad, it’s a shame they won’t see what is clearly a strong team compete in the playoffs. But this is also a cautionary tale on how rules not only need to be followed, but, on the team level, monitored.