Namibia captain Johan Deysel has been given an effective five match suspension for his dangerous tackle on Antoine Dupont that left the France skipper with a facial fracture and on the sidelines at the Rugby World Cup.
Deysel received a red card for the incident in France’s 96-0 win in Marseille last week, and later apologised having received online abuse.
An Independent Judicial Committee have decided the tackle met the top end on the scale of seriousness, which is a 12-game suspension, but have also applied the maximum 50% reduction in sentence following his apology and previous good record.
Deysel has indicated he will attend World Rugby’s ‘tackle school’, a coaching intervention programme, to have a further game taken off his suspension.
The first match of his ban is Namibia’s final World Cup Pool A meeting with Uruguay on Wednesday, where Deysel had been left out of the team selection named on Monday by coach Allister Coetzee.
The committee took into account the “degree of recklessness involved in the offending, the vulnerability of the victim player and the significant injury to him” in finding Deysel guilty.
It is rare for a judicial committee to start at the top end of the scale, with Dupont’s injury, and the outcry that followed, perhaps the biggest factor.
The scrumhalf has had surgery and will remain with France’s squad “under medical supervision” at the tournament, though no official timeline has been given on when he is expected to return to play.
A best-case scenario would be the quarterfinals on the weekend of Oct. 14-15.
Meanwhile, Tonga loose forward Vaea Fifita has almost certainly seen his last action at this year’s World Cup after being banned for four matches for a dangerous tackle on Scotland’s Finn Russell last weekend.
The Tonga-born former All Black was shown a yellow card later upgraded to red for the tackle late in the game. The 31-year-old admitted foul play at a judicial hearing on Tuesday but questioned whether it met the red-card threshold.
The independent panel decided the tackle was reckless, there was head contact and no mitigation and therefore banned him for six matches with a reduction of two games for his remorse and previous disciplinary record.
Fifita will therefore miss the game against world champions South Africa on Sunday and Tonga’s last Pool B clash with Romania on Oct. 8 as well as two matches for his Welsh team Scarlets.
Tonga have lost both pool matches against Ireland and Scotland and are all but out of the running for a place in the quarter-finals of the World Cup.