The Stade Francais flanker Christophe Moni will be cleared to face Munster in this Saturday's Heineken European Cup semifinal after the French champions appealed his automatic one-game suspension for receiving a second yellow card of the season in his side's championship defeat to Castres last Saturday evening.
Under French Federation rules, any player who receives two yellow cards in the course of the season is suspended for one game, as a result of which the French scrumhalf Fabien Galthie was ruled out of their defeat to Ireland in this season's Six Nations Championship.
However, the difference then was that Colomiers declined to appeal the suspension on Galthie's behalf whereas Stade Francais lodged an appeal yesterday which would put Moni's hearing back until next week and would effectively free him to play this coming Saturday in Lille.
Furthermore, reports from the Stade Francais camp in Evry, 30 kilometres south of Paris, yesterday do not rule out their English openside flanker Richard PoolJones. Though still rendered doubtful with a shoulder injury, a decision may be made on PoolJones tomorrow, as could be the case with full back Arthur Gomes, who has a thigh muscle strain which has prevented him from training this week.
There has been no great change in the overnight position of Munster's walking wounded, though team manager Jerry Holland reckons that if anything the odds on Peter Stringer making the semi-final have receded from about 60-40 to 50-50.
"His ankle injury is not responding to treatment as we would have hoped." Dominic Crotty is similarly in doubt, while David Wallace is a longer shot to make an unexpected return, though Peter Clohessy and Mick Galwey have responded well to treatment on back strains.
Meanwhile, Irish captain Keith Wood has confirmed that the rib cartilage injury he sustained in Harlequins' defeat to Leciester last Saturday will not endanger his Lions' tour prospects.
"I'm much happier now than I was on Saturday when I popped an old rib and everything seized up," said Wood. "I'll be on the exercise bike this afternoon and I should be back playing in two or three weeks."
London Irish have booked their place in the Premiership play-offs after seeing off Gloucester, 35-10.
Both teams had desperate games but Gloucester, who have already qualified for the play-offs, opted to field an inexperienced side ahead of Saturday's European Cup semi-final against Leicester.
