RUGBY NEWS:OSPREYS WINGER Tommy Bowe is free to line out against Viadana in tomorrow's Heineken Cup fixture after being cleared of an alleged spear-tackle on Kaine Robertson at a disciplinary hearing at ERC headquarters in Dublin yesterday.
Bowe was cited by commissioner Iain Goodall and accused of a dangerous and illegal tackle made on Robertson during Ospreys’ 62-7 win in Italy last weekend. At the hearing Judge Jeff Blackett determined that “although the player had committed an act of foul play (so that the citing was upheld), the act of foul play had not warranted a red card. Accordingly the player is free to play”.
Brive hooker Arnaud Mela and frontrow Guillaume Ribes picked up seven- and four-week bans respectively. Mela was cited by Alberto Recaldini for an alleged punch/strike on London Irish replacement hooker Danie Coetzee during last Saturday’s 36-3 defeat at Stadium Municipal.
He was found guilty of foul play and the ban, which he has right of appeal, runs up to and including January 31st, 2010, and rules him out of the remaining pool fixtures.
Ribes was cited after Irish referee George Clancy issued a red card in the second half for kicking and was judged guilty of foul play but at the “low end of seriousness for an offence of this type”.
Ribes’s four-week ban runs up to and including Sunday, January 10th, and means he will be available when the French side take on European champions Leinster at the RDS.
Yesterday’s session was adjourned “due to unforeseen travel delays” before the cases of Stade Francais pair, Julien Dupuy and David Attoub, could be heard. The pair were cited for alleged gouging incidents on Ulster’s Stephen Ferris last weekend. The hearings for both players will begin from 7.30am today.
