Ruhan Nel learns fate after 'gobsmacking' citing that infuriated Stormers
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."
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I dont believe Skelton has ever proven himself at test level tho Nick. Yep he played well against a side they scored plenty against but his record v the top sides isnt special. Good quality player but Im not as convinced about him as you seem to be, as you base most of your opinion on his local club stuff not really his test performances. His test record of 30 tests in 10 years explains itself very well. I think he is an honest performer but certainly not a top notch International player.
Go to commentsI wonder Jake, who do you think is the best fit for Australia as a coach? Not since Joe Schmidt took over as coach did Australia look any good, however, there is always this debate around not having an Aussie coach by the fans and so called pundits and old players.
Some of them are changing their minds now however, but I would love to see who you would choose. I think Joe Schmidt is an excellent coach, who puts in everything for the team he is coaching. To him, there is no such thing as being biased.
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