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EPCR statement: Bundee Aki verbal attack on referee Mathieu Raynal

(Photo by PA)

Ireland midfielder Bundee Aki can rest easy ahead of the upcoming Guinness Six Nations after learning that his verbal altercation with French referee Mathieu Raynal last Saturday in Galway after Connacht lost to Leicester only merited a citing commissioner warning rather than a citing and a potential ban.  

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Northampton boss Chris Boyd was suspended just last Thursday for two games by the RFU while Jersey coach Harvey Biljon was banned for one after their recent criticisms of referees following matches in England. But there will be no EPCR suspension for Aki after he lost his cool. 

Aki was left furious after Raynal deemed good a last-gasp match-winning try by Leicester’s Hosea Saumaki last weekend and he confronted the official on the pitch following the full-time whistle. “That is not fair. That’s not right. That is not fair,” he said in an argument that could be heard on live TV via the mic the referee was wearing. 

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Raynal replied to Aki: “What is not fair?”

“You knew it was on the line [the Leicester player’s foot], you can see it. You can see it,” retorted Aki. “I don’t want another apology. We have had too many apologies in our game.”

Raynal, though, had the last say, reprimanding Aki by insisting: “It is not on the line, you will apologise. Thank you.” The French official was ultimately proven correct that Aki would be the one doing the apologies as the Connacht player soon posted his mea culpa to Twitter. “Like to apologise about my action towards the referee and officials, kids who were watching,” he wrote. 

“Absolutely not needed in this game. Emotions were high and that is certainly not an excuse for my actions. Definitely will take the loss on the chin and will be looking at myself.”

With a Six Nations campaign on the horizon with Ireland, a squad he was confirmed in this Wednesday, Aki would have hoped that his swift apology following his unwarranted outburst was enough to ward off the attention of the match citing commissioner amid a climate where the rugby authorities have been clamping down on criticisms of referees.

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The apology wasn’t enough to put Aki completely in the clear as the match citing commissioner had indeed noted the incident. However, rather than feel it was an issue that merited a citing and a follow-up disciplinary hearing, the EPCR instead handed the midfielder a warning.   

“The Connacht centre, Bundee Aki, has been issued with a citing commissioner warning arising from his club’s Heineken Champions Cup round the match against Leicester,” read a statement. “The warning was for an act of dissent towards the match referee, Mathieu Raynal (France), in contravention of law 9.28. The match citing commissioner was Jeff Mark (Wales).

“Players who accumulate three citing commissioner warnings, or who are shown three yellow cards for foul play offences, or a combination of both, during the pool stages and knockout stages of the Heineken Champions Cup and the EPCR Challenge Cup, will be required to attend a disciplinary hearing.”

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J
JW 5 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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