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Six Nations statement: Committee, date named for Billy Vunipola hearing
By Liam Heagney
England are facing a very busy Tuesday on the independent disciplinary hearing front as the case for the red card brandished to Billy Vunipola on Saturday in Dublin will be heard in the evening after the appeal in the Owen Farrell case.
A Six Nations statement read: “England No8 Billy Vunipola will attend an independent disciplinary hearing after he received a red card for an act of foul play contrary to law 9.13 (a player must not tackle an opponent early, late or dangerously) in the Summer Nations Series match between Ireland and England on Saturday, August 19.
“The player will attend a hearing via video conference before an independent judicial committee consisting of Roddy Dunlop KC (chairman, Scotland), joined by former international coach Frank Hadden (Scotland) and former international Jamie Corsi (Wales). The hearing will take place on Tuesday evening, August 22.”
Vunipola was yellow-carded on 53 minutes in Dublin for his collision with Ireland's Andrew Porter, a sanction upgraded some minutes later to a red card following a TMO bunker review.
England boss Steve Borthwick said post-game: “I’m not going to comment upon the incident specifically because it goes into a disciplinary process this coming week.
“Hopefully we will find a conclusion on both matters this week and it won’t go into another week. Once I have all the facts, I will deal with them.
“We talked about the way this Test week was disrupted (by the Farrell situation) and I need to adapt throughout the week. It’s another challenge that has been thrown at us.”
It was Tuesday last week when England skipper Farrell was cleared to play with immediate effect after the red card received in the August 12 match against Wales was rescinded.
An all-Australian independent judiciary of Adam Casselden (SC, chair) and two former Wallaby players, John Langford and David Croft decided to downgrade the Farrell tackle on Taine Basham to a yellow card offence.
However, World Rugby last Thursday exercised its right to appeal the decision and this will be heard this Tuesday by a committee consisting of Nigel Hampton KC (chair, New Zealand), joined by Shao-ing Wang (Singapore) and Donal Courtney (Ireland).
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Latest Comments
I'm not sure about the Earl incident. I recall him missing an important tackle but he's certainly a quick flanker. SB has him cover centre when doing 6-2, fortunately we've never had to see how that would play out.
I'm not getting on board I'm afraid. The fact that England are scoring tries and being competitive despite being so amazingly disorganised and managing to lose every match is even more frustrating. The players front up and make a good account of themselves physically but the defence since Felix Jones is so much less organised. Players are flying out the line all over the place, there is no cohesion at all... And the attack... Literally it's just Marcus Smith.. and a bit of Feyi Waboso. Almost every player in the backline has done nothing offensively because the structure just isn't there for it, there's nothing creative or innovative to challenge the defense. The last 20 mins against the Boks it was just runners on crash ball off the 9, over and over getting smashed behind the gainline and turned over. These players are capable of doing much better.
We did score tries under Eddie but the backs didn't create anything. It worked well for a while but when we no longer had a big pack with the likes of Haskell and the Vunipolas playing well, it stopped working very rapidly. Once we started losing the gainline and couldn't exert so much pressure through bullying, they suddenly all looked clueless and we finished 5th in consecutive six nations.
I'd love to be on board, I've watched every game for the last 15 years and what I see is just super frustrating. It's groundhog day. The same mistakes over and over and no sign of progress. They've pushed some good sides close in this series but there is no acknowledgement of the issues, they keep saying how close they are and they're a growing team etc... he's been in charge for 2 years and has hundreds of caps in the side. This will end poorly, he's not the right guy, but thank you for trying.
Go to commentsGreat but players do play like Oz too BS!!
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