1
Ruhan Nel learns fate after 'gobsmacking' citing that infuriated Stormers
By Ian Cameron
Stormers' Ruhan Nel has avoided a ban after facing a disciplinary panel for the yellow card he received playing against Connacht in the United Rugby Championship.
The Stormers went down to 14 for the second time in the game after Nel was sin-binned for a high shot on Conor Fitzgerald and the home side went on to win after Alex Wootton’s offload to Peter Sullivan secured their third try.
The decision to cite Nel was described as gobsmacking by Stormers head coach John Dobson this week, who said the process was completely unnecessary, given that seemingly everyone on the day felt the hit was a 'yellow card at best' and not a red card.
Nel was cited under Law 9.13 – A player must not tackle an opponent early, late or dangerously. Dangerous tackling includes, but is not limited to, tackling or attempting to tackle an opponent above the line of the shoulders even if the tackle starts below the line of the shoulders
The Disciplinary Panel stated: "The Panel reviewed the alleged act of foul play against his opponent, Conor Fitzgerald (No 10) for Connacht, and found that there was head contact as a result of foul play. Applying the World Rugby Head Contact Process, the Panel determined that there was a high degree of danger in the Player's actions due to the speed and force of the collision. The Panel also considered, the mitigating factors, which were: the Player demonstrated a good level of control, both players dropped in height and that Nel turned his head away from the tackle in an attempt to avoid contact to the head on head contact."
"The on-field decision of the Match Officials team that, following mitigation, the incident did not meet the threshold of a red card was deemed correct by the Panel.
"Therefore, the Citing Complaint was not upheld and the Player is free to continue playing."
Trending on RugbyPass
2
All Blacks XV player ratings vs Munster
3
Suaalii strikes awe as Wallabies lose midfielder
4
Scott Robertson responds about handling errors
5
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.
Go to comments