London Irish back-row Chris Hala'ufia has won his appeal against a five-week suspension for a tip tackle in last week's game against London Welsh.
The 34-year-old number eight was sent-off for an incident contrary to Law 10.4(j), in the match at the Kassam Stadium on December 1 but has since had the suspension wiped out on appeal.
Hala'ufia is free to play again immediately.
The appeal was heard by Gareth Rees QC sitting as a single disciplinary officer at the London Bloomsbury Holiday Inn.








Comments
cuw3100 says...
@ TVaddict says...
Good! The system might work after all!
how can u say the system works when the "SYSTEM" banned him in the first place.
in a perfect world the system would have done nothing concerning the red card.
the fact that it went to an appeal and a hearing again, shows the sytem or the people working in it need to have their heads examined !!!!!
Posted 05:08 08th December 2012
powerplay says...
The right call!!
Posted 21:13 07th December 2012
NHsaints says...
definitely the right result.
Posted 17:30 07th December 2012
irishinlondon says...
Glad to see common sense has prevailed, shows how hit and miss the judiciary system is. I can understand and forgive a ref for making a call in real time, the panel however had no such excuses!
Posted 15:36 07th December 2012
TVaddict says...
Good! The system might work after all!
Posted 14:17 07th December 2012
APV1 says...
Excellent decision. It's just a shame it took an appeal.
Posted 14:10 07th December 2012
jamesliveinhope says...
right result - everything got silly last weekend with cards being brandished for nothing at the Kassam AND Welford road.
Louw's red card overturned and now this one - this it what happens when referees aren't given their heads.
Wigglesworth and the TMO managed to ruin a perfectly good game of rugby on Saturday with the only real red, in my opinion, the one that was missed (Mears).
I was in favour of the TMO review system but the absence of any contextual judgement means that they can only apply the laws and IRB directives which means that common sense goes out of the window.
The Donald yellow was the kind of incident that goes on around every breakdown several times a match. The officials obviously didn't see but responded to the crowd reaction, sent it upstairs to a TMO who could only adjudge on "punches" aimed at the head.
The sport really needs to sort this out otherwise you'll encourage play-acting (starting to see a lot in French rugby). And the away side in every fixture will have to spend most of their training time working with 14 on the park.
Posted 13:32 07th December 2012