1
Bath's double pursuit hit by Sam Underhill ban
By Neil Fissler
Bath’s bid for European and Premiership honours has taken a blow after England flanker Sam Underhill picked up a three-week ban for his red card in the Challenge Cup win in Pau last weekend, the first in his career.
ADVERTISEMENT
Scottish referee Hollie Davidson sent Underhill off for a dangerous 55th-minute tackle on Pau outside-centre Olivier Klemenczak in Bath’s 49-24 win at the Stade du Hameau.
Underhill accepted that he had committed an act of foul play but did not accept it warranted a red card. However, the independent Disciplinary Committee chaired by Robert Milligan KC upheld the referee’s decision.
The hearing, which was held by video conference on Tuesday, decided the offence was at the mid-range of World Rugby’s sanctions and selected six weeks as the appropriate entry point.
“Taking into account the player’s acceptance of the charge, his good disciplinary record and full cooperation with the disciplinary process, the independent Disciplinary Committee elected to apply the full 50 per cent mitigation and reduced the sanction to three weeks,” said European Professional Club Rugby.
Underhill will now miss the European Challenge Cup clash with arch-rivals Gloucester at The Rec on Sunday evening and the Premiership trip to Exeter on Saturday week.
But he will be back for the visit to The Rec of Premiership whipping boys Newcastle Falcons on April 28 if he applies for and successfully completes a World Rugby Coaching intervention course.
ADVERTISEMENT
Underhill’s disciplinary record has been superb, and he has only picked up three yellow cards in his 178-game career, the last of which came earlier this season in the 36-26 defeat against title rivals Bristol Bears in October.
Underhill has been in fine form this season after recovering from an ankle injury, scoring five tries in the 11 games that he has played for both club and country, with his last try coming in the win over Gloucester on March 23.
News, stats, live rugby and more! Download the new RugbyPass app on the App Store (iOS) and Google Play (Android) now!
This is not actually a massive blow to Bath’s chances of doing the double. Bath will finish top of the premiership table pretty comfortably and at this point should probably think about significant squad rotation anyway. Underhill is a bit more of a loss for the Challenge cup fixtures, but Bath should be able to beat Gloucester without him. Ted Hill, Josh Bayliss, Miles Reid, Guy Pepper, & Alfie Barbeary aren’t a terrible group to select a back row from.
Poor Sam. Lad should be a Lion but he's never going to get the opportunity. He's as good as any flanker in England.
this ban doesn’t have anything to do with his Lions chances? He’s only going to be out for three weeks.
I think if the Lions tours had been in 2020 and 2024, he’d have been selected both times, but 2021 and 2025 haven’t been great years of form for him. As good as he is, at the moment it is hard to argue he’s quite on the level of Tom Curry or Ben Earl, and Henry Pollock clearly has a much higher ceiling. I guess there might be another England squad place up for grabs, and it’ll be Underhill competing against Ben Curry and Guy Pepper for that. Short term, its Curry’s to lose. Long term, I like the look of Pepper.