Scrumhalf Matt Henjak will go on the Western Force’s Super 14 rugby tour to South Africa this week with a club disciplinary hearing hanging over him, team officials said on Tuesday.
Acting Force CEO Mitch Hardy said Henjak would tour despite an incident that left teammate Haig Sare undergoing hospital treatment for a jaw injury likely to keep him out of rugby for six weeks.
Hardy said both players had been told their careers at the Force were at risk after reports of a fight in a restaurant.
”Matt will go with the team … at this point in time we are comfortable that we have carried sufficient interviews and investigations,” Hardy told reporters before the team’s departure on Tuesday for South Africa.
”Matt will be permitted to travel with the team, but there certainly are indications that a hearing will take place at some stage over the next one to two weeks so we can resolve this matter.
”You have got two players’ careers that are on the line.”
Coach John Mitchell said Henjak would start the Force’s first game against the Sharks in Durban on Friday.
”Yes, he will … he deserves his selection. The team has put an enormous amount of work in the season into this first fixture,” Mitchell said.
”It would be totally unfair on everyone in the organisation and the team if we weren’t to select the best players to go on the field.”
The alleged incident is the latest setback to Henjak’s chequered career.
Henjak was sent home from the Wallabies’ tour of South Africa in 2005 after officials found he had thrown ice at a group of students in a Cape Town nightclub.
And late last year it was reported he had been involved in an assault in a South African nightclub while on tour with his former Super 14 team the ACT Brumbies. — AFP
