FRANCE AND CLERMONT lock Sebastien Vahaamahina has been slapped with a six-week ban for the vicious elbow to the head of Wales’ Aaron Wainwright.
France were leading the Rugby World Cup quarter-final clash when the second row targetted a blow to the jaw of the Welsh flanker and was issued a straight red card.
A disciplinary committee in Tokyo today – chaired by Mike Hamlin (England) with his compatriot Leon Lloyd and Australia’s David Croft – ruled that the offence merited a top end sanction, meaning an entry-point 10-week suspension.
That 10-week ban was reduced by four as the committee took into account the 28-year-old’s ‘early and full acknowledgment of his conduct and prompt apology’.
The six-week suspension leaves Vahaamahina unavailable to Clermont until 16 December, meaning he will miss a Top14 clash with Toulouse and the opening four rounds of the Heineken Champions Cup, most notably a 22 November Friday night clash with Ulster.
On the latest episode of The42 Rugby Weekly, Andy Dunne tells Murray Kinsella and Gavan Casey about where it all went wrong for Joe Schmidt’s Ireland
