Suspensions mount up for Gloucester

Gloucester hooker Olivier Azam received a 12-week suspension last night after pleading guilty to kicking England captain Steve Borthwick as the Kingsholm club's disciplinary record plunged from bad to worse.

Azam was joined on the sidelines by lock Adam Eustace, who received a three-week suspension for stamping on Justin Marshall in the same game.

Gloucester have now had four players banned from the opening five matches of the season.

Captain Gareth Delve had a three-week suspension for punching reduced to two weeks on appeal, while flanker Andy Hazell has already been forced to sit out a week for stamping.

Azam had only just returned from a nine-week eye-gouging ban when he clashed with Borthwick at Vicarage Road, leaving the Saracens lock requiring five stitches and a night under surveillance in a specialist eye hospital.

Borthwick was ruled out of action for between two and four weeks with extreme swelling of his right eye, although he is expected to be fit for England's autumn international campaign which begins on November 7th.

Azam insisted after the match that any contact with Borthwick had been accidental and that he only lashed out with his right leg because his left ankle was being twisted at the bottom of a ruck.

At a Rugby Football Union hearing in Bristol last night Azam pleaded guilty to the charge and was banned from playing until December 29th.

The Frenchman will miss Gloucester's first four Heineken Cup matches, six Premiership games, two Anglo-Welsh Cup ties and the club's marquee friendly against Australia on November 3.

Gloucester's next match after December 29th is the home league clash against Worcester on January 2nd.

Eustace will be available again for the Cherry and Whites' Premiership trip to Sale on October 30th.

In Belfast, Munster prop John Hayes received a six-week ban for stamping on his Leinster opposite number Cian Healy.

The Ireland international was sent off after his boot made contact with Healy's face in the second half of last Saturday's Magners League game in Dublin, which Leinster won 30-0.

Hayes will miss the opening two games of Munster's Heineken Cup campaign, starting against Northampton next Saturday and followed by a home appointment with Treviso. He must also sit out Magners League games against Edinburgh and Ulster.

But Hayes will be available for all three of Ireland's autumn Tests, starting against Australia on November 15 and concluding against world champions South Africa 13 days later.

Bath winger Joe Maddock had a dangerous tackle charge dismissed by an RFU panel.