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Toulouse fly-half Thomas Ramos will face no action over an unsavoury attack on opposite man Marcus Smith as his side beat Harlequins 47-19 at the Stoop on Sunday.
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With just seconds to go in the Investec Champions Cup match in London, and with the result already sewn up, Smith found himself with the ball in his hands on his own try line with Ramos pursuing him. The Englishman was able to shrug off the tackle of the fellow fly-half before offloading to his teammate Oscar Beard. Ramos scrambled back to his feet to tackle Beard and in the ensuing ruck had a pop at Smith.
The Quins No10 was lying at the bottom of the ruck, whereupon Ramos flopped on him, seemingly dropping his elbow into his back, before pushing his head into the ground. Had his elbow not landed only on Smith’s back, this could have been a much more serious incident.
It was a needless cheap shot, particularly in the context of the game, but the France international will face no further action after the EPCR announced their scheduled disciplinary hearings today. The only player to be cited after round two of the Champions Cup is Northampton Saints scrum-half Tom James, who will attend a hearing tomorrow via video after being accused of striking Toulon scrum-half Ben White with his head in the 70th minute their match at Franklin’s Gardens.
In the Challenge Cup, both Benetton’s Sebastian Negri and Castres’ Adrea Cocagi have been cited following their red cards at the weekend. Negri was dismissed by referee Eoghan Cross for a dangerous entry to a ruck against Perpignan, while Cocagi was shown red for a dangerous tackle against Edinburgh.
Cocagi’s hearing will take place this evening, while Negri’s will take place at a later date on a papers only basis.
Let’s face it, any kind of shot on Smith is totally welcome and the harder the better!!
I’m shocked at how badly the disciplinary and player safety aspects of this game have been handled.
I was at the ground and while Toulouse were good for the win, numerous high tackles were ignored (including a late, high shot on Smith that was shown on the big screen and the ref refused to look at), the yellow card decision looked very poor (the mitigation that it was a passive tackle seems to have come from the fact that the tackler got knocked down, when the replays clearly showed no wrap and him driving up into contact) and now both the failure of the TMO to spot this incident and the fact that it hasn’t been cited.
It’s setting an appalling precedent if deliberate, off the ball contact with the head can just be ignored.
this is what happens when you make the SFs and FRA bows out in the QF # jealousy
Dirty cheap shots. It won’t faze Smith but I’m amazed this isn’t dealt with by the citing process. Rugby sending out the wrong message.