FRANCE FORWARD Pascal Pape has been suspended for 10 weeks for the incident that left Jamie Heaslip injured last weekend in Dublin.
The Stade Francais lock appeared to knee the Leinster man in the back during Ireland’s win over France in their Six Nations clash.
Heaslip is facing several weeks out of action but today’s decision means Pape’s campaign is over.
Officials decided that the offence “should be categorised at the top end of World Rugby’s scale of seriousness and set an entry point of a 15 week suspension”.
However taking “aggravating factors and the existence of certain mitigating factors, including the player’s admission of foul play and his expressions of remorse” they suspended five weeks of the ban.
First published at 16.34
So England benefit on the double. They have to face an Ireland team without Heaslip and France without Pape!
Well its hardly a conspiracy.
But Pape is shit. just have to look at this (or his many indisciplinary problems), his blown pass to Choley in our match last year or his poor pass to Plisson in the Scotland match. Really unless he’s delievering a hell of a lot of force in the scrum that I dont know about he’s wholely replacable.
Good man David that’s the spirit!
Although it seems we should have gotten the benefit of the red card at the time; especially if Barnes said he thought it was intentional. Isn’t it yellow for reckless and red for intentional?
Heaslip comes out of this very well and showed great character by tweeting his generous acceptance and understating of that fact that sometimes in the heat of battle people behave inappropriately.
Well let’s remember Heaslip did a similar thing to McCaw about 4 years ago. It would be a bit pot kettle black if he condemned Pape.
Sacre bleu
Pape le pew!!
That comment stinks
True. It’s fairly black & white.
Shit your beak Cian
Its well passed your bedtime.
See? Typical southern rural weirdo. Imagining people they’re talking to online as children. I can actually see the corrugated tin roof on the shed you lure your young victims to!
What aggravating circumstances??? The fact that ireland were executing another effective turnover or that Heaslip had been a thorn in the French side all day?? Load of balls. 15 weeks not enough as it is!
Why do you say he “appeared” to knee Heaslip in the back??? He did knee him in the back. There’s no confusion there. He didn’t apologise for “appearing” to knee him. The only issue is whether he meant to or not
No issue. He admitted he meant to. Hence a few weeks off! !! Go figure.
Yeah I know there’s no issue. The point I was making was that the fact that he kneed him in the back is undisputed and isn’t open to interpretation. The only thing that was open to interpretation was whether he meant to do so or not, for example, PSA said he didn’t mean it even though it was plainly obvious to most people that he did
Pape out for 10 weeks……Heaslip out for ? weeks……. and Mr. Yellow card Barnes out for……ever!
If Ireland beat England next week who cares if Pape plays against England or not!! He’s overrated anyway IMO
Lol, a tweet got his sentence reduced by a third! It was deliberate and dirty as they come. 20-30 weeks (and therefore missing the World Cup) would have been more appropriate.
Just goes to show how much of a joke Wayne Barnes is/was. An act adjudged to be worthy of a 15 week ban, having been seen several times in replay, was only worthy of a yellow card. Deliberately striking an opponent is a red card offence. End of.
A reduction of a third for admitting guilt and showing remorse. Seems to be similar leniancy to the serial offender dylan hartley getting reduced punishments. In my view it just reduces the credability of the officiating organisations. Conspiracy theories aside I do think its a symptom of rugby loosing its old amateur ethos of fair play to the money driven game we now see pushed by the premiership an top 14. Its the world we now live in so best get used to it.
He should have this ban plus an extra ban for games against Ireland in the future. This way the victims of the crime also get a redress. We get nothing from this. It’s like getting burgled and the burglar getting fined but the money going to others.
WE WON. Why is everyone so obsessed about him not playing England. Who gives a toss, if we lose to England they’ll no doubt go on and win the Slam anyway. Papè or not. Should be focusing fully on England not looking for favours a month down the road.
How did PSA get his analysis of this situation so wrong even with hindsight. A loss to England and he will be replaced before the World Cup, might sound crazy now but he is driving this French team with the hand break on.
It’s a shame that an incident worth a 10 week ban was reviewed for several minutes from every conceivable angle by a referee, two touch judges and a TMO and all they came up with was a yellow card.
At least we won the game, had we of lost, this would be very tough to take.
Heaslip knows how Pape feels. If I’m not mistaken Heaslip got sent of for use of the knee against the All Blacks a number of years ago. He was absolutely gutted at the time, much how Pape must feel now. The ban do us much bloody good now though…. a red at the time would have been nice
And it was the same referee. And he didn’t need a video replay then so how with the benefit of the replay has he still got it wrong. What Matt o’Connor said after the Wasps game is very true in that they lost a player for ten minutes but Leinster lost a player for the game.
Neil Francis will like that
Good !
The real villain in this saga is wayne Barnes yet he escapes with no ban??
Harsh punishment