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France will appeal Paul Gabrillagues' six-week ban
By Liam Heagney
France are to appeal the six-week ban handed down to second row Paul Gabrillagues. His lengthy suspension is set to rule him out of the remainder of France’s warm-up match programme along with their pool games versus Argentina, USA and Tonga at the World Cup in Japan. He will only become available to play again for their final match versus England on Yokahama on October 12.
Gabrillagues’ unavailability stems from his appearance on Tuesday before an independent World Rugby disciplinary committee after he was cited for foul play in the Test match against Scotland in Nice last Saturday.
The disciplinary committee – chaired by Simon Thomas (Wales) alongside Donal Courtney (Ireland) and Valeriu Toma (Romania, via Skype) – viewed footage with various angles of the incident in which Gabrillagues, in the 16th minute of the match, made contact with the head of John Barclay contrary to Law 9.20 – “a player must not charge into a ruck or maul”.
However, French rugby vice-president Serge Simon doesn’t believe the foul play warranted a World Cup-ruining ban. He tweeted on Wednesday night that the ban will be appealed. “Considered the sanction in the first instance very heavy and after discussion with Paul, we have decided to appeal,” he wrote.
Former France international Gregory Lamboley has earlier shared his dismay on Twitter after Gabrillagues was punished. Lamboley claimed it was “outrageous” that his compatriot received a six-week ban – reduced from a 10-week entry point – while the All Blacks’ Scott Barrett only received a three-week ban for a head offence the week before, meaning he will not miss any of the World Cup.
Barrett saw red in the first half of the first Bledisloe Cup Test two weekends ago for making contact with Australian captain Michael Hooper’s head. The majority of the rugby world agreed that it was a red card for Barrett, although his three-week ban was deemed light as it meant he only missed last weekend’s rematch against Australia.
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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