Horan facing exile after admin error

Chris Jones13 April 2012

Saracens' bid for Heineken Cup glory now depends on a surgeon's knife and an appeal against a ruling that would bar Tim Horan, the World Cup winning centre, from taking part in the tournament.

Scott Murray, the Scotland lock, scored an excellent try in Saturday's morale boosting 32-22 win in Toulouse but he goes into hospital today for surgery on his injured knee. The joint will be flushed out and Murray is expected to be back in the squad in just 10 days time.

However, getting Horan into the squad once he has overcome a persistent foot injury has suddenly become very complicated. It is understood that Heineken Cup organisers will today reveal that Horan is not officially registered as a Sarries player despite appearing in the team lists put out in the tournament media guide.

An administrative error by Sarries means that Horan has not signed the official form and under the registration rules, he is not eligible. Sarries have asked tournament officials to make an exception as Heineken even used Horan in their publicity drive for the competition.

European Rugby Cup Ltd, the governing body, could opt to be stubborn on this point and Sarries have no guarantee of success. The feel good factor generated by their outstanding win over Toulouse, with Thomas Castaignede contributing 22 points, has also been affected by ERC's decision to block the registration of Jeff Probyn and another prop as front row cover. Sarries are also appealing against this decision.

Meanwhile, Nigel Melville, the London Wasps director of rugby, is not pushing the panic button despite watching his team crash 54-28 at Swansea.

Melville said: "It comes down to preparation and so many players were hit by flu last week that we failed to put in the required time on the training pitch."

There was better news in the European Shield, where London Irish beat Aurillac 42-10 and Harlequins emerged victorious at home to Perigueux 23-16.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in