Ex-Australia international Timani fined €10,000 by French court following bottle throwing incident

Former Wallaby back row Lopeti Timani has been fined €10,000 by a court in France following an assault case where he was charged with throwing a bottle in a brawl outside a La Rochelle nightclub in May last year.

The 29-year-old back row, who won the last of his twelve Wallabies caps in November 2017, was being prosecuted for “violence with a weapon” – in this case, a bottle.

According to a report in L’Equipe, after being kicked out of the nightclub in 2019 for nudging a security guard inside the establishment, La Rochelle forward Timani threw a bottle which hit another security guard in the face. 

New Wallabies coach Dave Rennie announces his Test squad

New Wallabies coach Dave Rennie announces his Test squad

This man and one of his colleagues then attacked the player, one of the two guards hitting him with a security barrier as well as punching and kicking.

At a hearing in June, Timani apologised, saying he was sorry for throwing the bottle. “I didn’t want to hurt someone. I threw it without looking over my shoulder,” he said, adding that he had deliberately not reacted when he was then attacked. “If I had fought, it would have been the end of my career” at La Rochelle, Timani explained. 

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A decision on the case was expected on September 14 and it emerged as planned, Timani fined a five-figure sum to draw a line under an incident where there was talk of a suspended six-month prison sentence potentially being the outcome. 

The back row has appeared off the bench in recent weeks in both of La Rochelle’s 2020/21 Top 14 games, the home win over Toulon followed by Saturday’s defeat at Toulouse.  

Timani joined La Rochelle after five Super Rugby seasons with the Melbourne-based Rebels and two more with the Waratahs. He featured for La Rochelle in nine of their 17 matches in the cancelled 2019/20 French Top 14.

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— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) September 12, 2020