Ban rules Devoto out of Exeter's all-English Champions Cup quarter-final

Ollie Devoto will miss Exeter’s Heineken Champions Cup quarter-final versus Northampton due to suspension.

The Chiefs back appeared before an independent disciplinary panel after being cited by independent citing commissioner Chris Catling for an alleged dangerous tackle on Harlequins’ Marcus Smith in the 72nd minute of last Saturday’s Gallagher Premiership match. 

Devoto didn’t plead guilty but was found guilty by the panel, which comprised of Philip Evans (chair), with Leon Lloyd and Chris Skaife. He is banned from March 3 to April 6, ruling him out of his club’s European fixture on April 4.

Independent panel chair Evans said: “The player accepted that he had made a high tackle with a swinging arm and that it made contact with the head of the opposition player. 

“He did not accept it met the red card threshold. The panel applied the World Rugby decision making framework for high tackles and considering all of the evidence available found that there was a high degree of danger to the Harlequins player as a consequence of the incident. 

“There were insufficient mitigating factors to reduce the red card to yellow. He contested the charge, but other mitigation reduced the sanction from six weeks to four. He will be available to play on April 7 which includes four meaningful weeks of fixtures.”

Devoto, who featured off the bench in England’s Six Nations opener away to France last month, was in Eddie Jones' 34-man squad at the start of this week but was cut when it was reduced to 27 on Tuesday evening ahead of this Saturday’s meeting with Wales.   

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