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Jonny Hill learns disciplinary hearing fate after fan altercation

Out of favour England lock Jonny Hill (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Out of favour England international Jonny Hill will resume his playing career with Sale in early December despite originally facing a 20-week suspension at his RFU disciplinary hearing. The 30-year-old became the subject of a police investigation following a June 1 altercation with a fan in the stands following Sharks’ Gallagher Premiership semi-final loss at Bath.

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It was 53 days ago, at a pre-season media day at Carrington, when Sale director of rugby Alex Sanderson first revealed that Hill would also face an RFU disciplinary hearing as soon as the police investigation had finished.

It had been alleged that the forward, who was unavailable for selection in June because of a long-term injury, put a spectator in a headlock, breaking his glasses and leaving a cut above his right eye.

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That police investigation concluded without its outcome being publicly revealed. In the meantime, Hill was summoned to appear before an independent disciplinary panel on Monday night.

It was determined that Hill’s suspension entry point should be 20 weeks. However, mitigation halved this initially proposed punishment and it was ultimately reduced to a lay-off of six weeks as four of the 10 weeks were suspended until the end of the 2025/26 season.

Team Form

0
Wins
2
0
Streak
2
0
Tries Scored
17
0
Points Difference
-39
0/0
First Try
2/5
0/0
First Points
3/5
0/0
Race To 10 Points
3/5

That leaves Hill, who has been fully fit since the start of the 2024/25 season, available to make his comeback in the December 7 Investec Champions Cup game away to Glasgow.

An RFU statement read: “Jonny Hill (Sale Sharks) appeared before an independent disciplinary panel on Monday, November 4, for an alleged breach of RFU rule 5.12 – conduct prejudicial to the interests of the game and/or union in circumstances where he is alleged to have physically abused a spectator in the aftermath of Bath Rugby vs Sale Sharks at the Recreation Ground on June 1.

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“The panel was chaired by Philip Evans KC sitting with Oliver Clark and Leon Lloyd. Jonny accepted the charge. He will be available to play for Sale on December 7. The full written judgement will be available in due course.”

Evans explained: “The panel concluded the appropriate starting point was a 20-week suspension from playing. They also found the circumstances of this case to be exceptional and as a consequence, and because of the substantial mitigation available to Jonny Hill, that starting point was reduced to 10 weeks, four of which will be suspended until the conclusion of the 25/26 season.

“In addition he is required to give a presentation to young players at the club which is to be recorded and provided to the RFU.”

In a separate statement, Sale said: “Both the club and player accept the ruling made by the RFU disciplinary panel and we now look forward to getting Jonny back on the pitch in a Sharks shirt as soon as possible.”

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Women’s Rugby World Cup England 2025 ticket application opens 5 November (22 October for Mastercard holders). Register your interest now.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

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