Whoever coined that famous expression certainly knew his onions and Yorkshire's decision to appeal their expulsion from the Twenty20 Cup smacks of a club tunnelling their way into further trouble.

In Taunton on Monday, an appeal hearing will determine whether the verdict of the England and Wales Cricket Board's Cricket Discipline Commission to kick Yorkshire out of the competition for fielding 17-year-old Azeem Rafiq, an ineligible player, was correct.

Yorkshire will challenge the disciplinary panel's contention that they knew for at least 18 months there were doubts as to Rafiq's immigration status.

The situation is messy but one thing is clear: whether Yorkshire were or were not warned by the ECB, they have broken the regulations and will have to face the consequences.

In their opinion, however, the punishment does not fit the crime.

If Yorkshire win their appeal, it would be a turnaround akin to the decision of the International Cricket Council to change the result of the 2006 Oval Test match between England and Pakistan; if they lose, the damage to Yorkshire's reputation will only increase.

The decision to throw Yorkshire out of the Twenty20 Cup was right in my opinion.

The disciplinary panel found there had been "a serious breach of regulations" and that Yorkshire had been put on notice to check Rafiq's eligibility.

If that is so, it is a serious blow to Yorkshire's management board, led by chief executive Stewart Regan, who has already insisted he will not resign in the wake of a furore that looks certain to cost Yorkshire the chance of taking part in the £2.5m Champions League.

Regan was absolutely right to say the buck stops with him, after admitting the club's failure to properly register Rafiq, who has a Pakistani rather than a British passport and who is ineligible to play in first team matches. With responsibility comes accountability.

Some may wonder how an off-spinner who had previously captained England at schoolboy level could possibly be ineligible for first-team cricket.

But schoolboy cricket does not come under the same regulations and the simple fact is, Yorkshire should have checked. If Yorkshire thought the Chris Adams debacle was as bad as it gets, these last few days will have come as a shock.

Yorkshire paraded Adams before he had signed a contract after the Sussex captain verbally agreed to become Yorkshire's captain and director of professional cricket during the winter of 2006.

A few days later, Adams got cold feet and headed back to Hove, citing a lack of confidence in Yorkshire's board as the reason for his U-turn.

I mention the Adams situation purely to emphasise the severity of recent events.

In the words of the disciplinary panel, Yorkshire's mistake over Rafiq "could not be passed over as a clerical error" and was not simply a case of an office temp inadvertently forgetting to fill out a form.

As Martyn Moxon, the club's director of professional cricket, put it when Monday's quarter-final against Durham was dramatically called off, this situation has been "a disaster for Yorkshire".

Moxon, incidentally, handled himself superbly when he found himself in the firing line at the Riverside ground; this was the last thing he needed 48 hours after Yorkshire were knocked out of the Friends Provident Trophy semi-finals by a vibrant Essex.

Not the least surprising aspect of Yorkshire's expulsion is that the ECB have properly tackled this issue in a vigorous way.

I would not have been surprised had they slapped Yorkshire with a fine but still allowed them to replay their game against Nottinghamshire in which Rafiq took part. That, however, would have been the wrong move.

That said, I am not certain Nottinghamshire should have been given a lifeline by taking Yorkshire's place in the last eight.

A fairer solution would have been to allow Durham to progress to finals day with a bye, especially as Durham may not have their Twenty20 specialists available for a rearranged fixture, and also because Rafiq's involvement against Nottinghamshire was negligible.

There are other interesting elements to this saga.

Were Yorkshire dropped in it, so to speak, by one of their fellow counties? After all, there is so much money floating around in Twenty20 these days that nothing can be ruled out.

Could the ECB have made a better attempt to make Yorkshire aware Rafiq was ineligible? Is this payback time, perhaps, after Yorkshire signed Jacques Rudolph – a move that attracted widespread condemnation? How will the Yorkshire players react to the lost opportunity of winning £2.5m? After all, it cannot be good for team morale.

But the bottom line here seems simple enough: Yorkshire have made an error and it looks set to cost them dear.

Only time will tell whether they are right to reach for the nearest shovel.