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Oghre citing result will pique interest of England exile George
By Liam Heagney
Wasps' Gabriel Oghre has seemingly had his hopes of involvement in the autumn internationals with England dashed following the receipt of a three-match ban after he was cited for a dangerous tackle in last Sunday's Gallagher Premiership win over Northampton in Coventry.
Having been involved in the summer training squad, the uncapped 23-year-old hooker was one of eight uncapped players included in the 45-strong chosen for last month's mini-training camp in London. That was the gathering that Eddie Jones excluded the established Jamie George from, paving the way for Oghre to be included.
However, with the next England squad due to be announced on October 18 for the training camp in Jersey ahead of the November matches versus Tonga, Australia and South Africa, Oghre won't feature following a suspension that will rule him out of the upcoming Wasps matches versus Exeter, Saracens and Bath.
While George is finding his way back to form with Saracens, this three-match ban currently takes Oghre through to November 2, but it could be cut by a week if the player applies to World Rugby for a coaching intervention and satisfactorily completes the intervention.
Oghre was cited by Paul Hull following last Sunday's match after he was yellow-carded for foul play on Alex Mitchell and he accepted the charge when appearing on Tuesday night before a disciplinary panel comprising Gareth Graham (chair) with Olly Kohn and Leon Lloyd.
At the hearing, Oghre claimed he had no intention to make contact with the head of the Northampton player and that it was an unintended consequence of a poorly executed tackle, candidly accepting that he got his positioning and execution wrong. The written judgment stated: "By his plea, the player accepted that the referee’s decision on the field (which was to give the player a yellow card) was incorrect having regard to the implementation of the head contact process."
The judgment added: "This was a poorly executed, reckless tackle that made direct contact to the head. The panel had no hesitation in concluding that in all the circumstances of this case a mid-range entry point (six weeks) was appropriate. In the circumstances, the panel accepted that the player was entitled to the maximum deduction of 50 per cent by way of mitigation."
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Latest Comments
The boy needs to bulk up if wants to play 10 or 11 to handle those hits, otherwise he could always make a brilliant reserve for the wings if he stays away from the stretcher.
Go to commentsIn another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.
First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.
They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.
Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.
Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.
That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup
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