The rationale behind their appeal is that France breached the laws of the game as changed on 1 June 2003. The relevant portion of the change is that to substitutes in the front row.

Law changes happen because people cheat! The laws governing safety in the front row was from time to time being abused by teams struggling in the scrum. If a team had an injury in the front row and it had no adequate substitute, uncontested scrums were used. This depowered the strong scrum and left the weak pack on equal terms at scrum time. This happened because teams were using only one prop and a hooker amongst their substitutes and the hooker would claim that he could not replace a prop.

To counter this, the IRB's new law states that, if a gleam is made up of 19 players or more, two of the substitutes had to be able to play in any of the positions in the front row.

Law 3.5 (d): When 19, 20, 21 or 22 players are nominated in a team there must be sufficient front row players to play at hooker, tighthead prop and loosehead prop who are suitably trained and experienced to ensure that on both the first and second occasions that a replacement in any front row position is required, the team can continue to play safely with contested scrums.

Wales claim that this regulation had been explained to the managers at the start of the Under-21 World Cup. But in the Wales-France match France were unable to comply with the laws and so uncontested scrums were introduced from 63 minutes on.

The Welsh manager, Chris Davey, claims that this should be sufficient grounds for France to forfeit the match. According to Britain's Press Association he said: "The new ruling, which was clearly explained to us at the start of the tournament states that you must be able to cover your first two front-row injuries. But France failed to do this, so I believe they should forfeit their win."

The IRB will decide on the issue on Monday.

Until 1890 disputers were a part of rugby, during and after the match, the most celebrated being England's winning try against Scotland in 1884 which led to the cessation of matches between the two teams and was eventually tried by three high court judges, which led to the formation of the International Rugby Board. The referee then became the sole judge of fact and law, except in the case of eligibility. Clearly this is changing.

In 1998 South Africa and Ireland ended their match drawn. South Africa won the kick off but Ireland subsequently appealed because one of the South African kickers, Conrad Jantjes had not played in the match but merely been on the bench.

The final position of the teams at the World Cup affects its seeding at the next World Cup, in 2004.