'He's devastated': Bath cry foul over the length of ban given to Beno Obano
Bath boss Stuart Hooper was left flummoxed that last Sunday’s red card for Beno Obano at Wasps was deemed a top-end offence, resulting in the England prop receiving a five-game ban that will rule out of a possible European Challenge Cup final appearance should his club defeat Montpellier in this Saturday’s semi-final.
The pattern for red-carded dangerous tackles in the Gallagher Premiership has usually been a mid-range entry point where players are given a six-week ban that is then reduced to just three weeks after 50 per cent mitigation is applied.
However, because Wasps’ Ben Morris wound up with a broken nose, the high tackle executed by Obano was deemed to be more serious offebnce and it left him facing a potential ten-week ban before the 50 per cent reduction was applied.
As it stands, Obano, who accepted the dangerous tackling charge at his RFU hearing, will only be available to Bath by June 8 at the latest (it will be a week earlier if Bath don’t qualify for the European final) following the 73rd-minute red card given at the Ricoh by referee Ian Tempest.
This outcome has left Bath coach Hooper perplexed. While on the one hand, he is fully supportive of the way rugby is now clamping down on bad tackles to the head, he was left dissatisfied over how the Obano collision was graded at the disciplinary hearing and left him to suffer a longer suspension than anticipated.
Disciplinary update | @BathRugby's Beno Obano has been given a five week suspension following his red card against Wasps.
Read the full judgement here: https://t.co/C1zAZyZzGE pic.twitter.com/h38Tp3ALlc
— England Rugby (@EnglandRugby) April 28, 2021
“I’m disappointed where it has ended up,” said Hooper on Wednesday afternoon when he fronted media ahead of this weekend’s cup semi-final. “I find it very confusing if I am honest. Of course, the welfare of the players is very important but the tackle that Beno went to make, as he said in his judgment, is that he got it too high.
“It was too high. The movement of the other player had an impact as well in that but he goes to wrap his arms, he does wrap his arms. He makes contact with the chest area and unfortunately they hit head-on-head. Sometimes we see those given in inverted commas as ‘rugby incidents’ and other times we don’t. It’s disappointing. I need to seek a bit of clarification as to what has happened.
“Evidently there is a framework in place at the moment and it has been put in place to bring about a change in behaviour, but we just need to be very careful about the sanctions that are given and why they are given.
“I need clarification because what I have here is a young man who is in the prime of his career and he wants to be pushing on and playing in big games at the club. Of course, we want him to be playing as well. That has now been taken away and we just need to look and make sure of everything and we are clear on why it has happened.”
Asked would Bath appeal the five-game ban for Obano, Hooper continued: “I’m not at that stage yet. I have been out on the training field and the judgment has come through. My reaction is something that is immediate and I need to understand the details of how they got to that point and the process that gets us there because I don’t see it being in line with other sanctions that have been given.”
The bottom line is that Hooper has been left with a player who has seen his hopes of playing at the business end of the season in May go up in smoke. “He is devastated,” relayed Hooper. “He was devastated when he came off the field because of what it meant for the team and since then he has been nothing but contrite.
“He completely understands that the tackle he made was too high. In the moment with the opposition player, they clashed heads but he has been nothing but apologetic and contrite and so he is gutted.
“I need to gather my thoughts. One thing we absolutely have got right is that the safety of the players is paramount. That should not be clouded in any way. But the process and the understanding, not only do I need to understand it but everybody we want to watch the game, enjoy the game and attract to the game needs to understand it as well.”
"His coaching role in Japan makes English rugby look RIDICULOUS…"
– Woodward has let rip in his latest newspaper columnhttps://t.co/8SYakMGnqk
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) April 28, 2021
Comments on RugbyPass
It was rubbish to watch, Blues weren’t even present. Did what they had to do, nothing more. Should be better next week against canes.
1 Go to commentsI’ve just noticed that this match has an all-French refereeing team. Surely a game like this ought to have a neutral ref? Although looking at the BBC preview of the Saints game, Raynal is also down as reffing that - so there may be some confusion about who is reffing what.
1 Go to commentsIf Havili can play anywhere in the back line, why not first 5. #10.
11 Go to commentsThe dressing room had already left for their summer break before they ran out in Dublin that year, and that’s on the coach. Franco Smith has undoubtedly made progress, particularly their maul, developing squad players and increasing squad depth. And against a very tight budget too. That said they were too lightweight last year and got found out against both Toulon and Munster in consecutive games. Better this season so far but they’ve developed something of a slow start habit occasionally, most notably losing at home to Northampton who played them at their own game. Play offs will ultimately show whether there has been tangible progress on last year, or not…!
2 Go to commentsAustralian Rugby has been a disaster, by not incorporating learning from previous successful campaigns. QLD Reds 2011 - Waratahs 2014. Players, coaches and administrators appoint there representatives for scheduled meetings, organisation’s agreement’s assessments and correspondence. This why a unified Rugby Union under one entity works. Every Rugby nation has taken that path. Was most difficult in the Northern hemisphere with over 100 years of club rugby before the game become professional. Took a lot of humility for those unions to eventually work together.
7 Go to commentsThough Wilson’s sacking was pretty brutal, it wasn’t just down to that Leinster game; Glasgow had a lot of 2nd half collapses that season, in the URC and Europe, and only just scraped into the playoffs. Franco Smith has definitely been an improvement, some players are delivering far more than they did under Wilson.
2 Go to commentsjesus - that front 5!
1 Go to commentsShould be an absolute cracker of a game! Will be great to see DuPont & Ntamack in tandem once again🔥
1 Go to commentsBest team ever…. To have played? These guys are still pressure chokers. Came nowhere when it counted. What a joke
69 Go to commentsMusk defends anonymous terrorism, fascism, threats against individuals and children etc etc But a Rugby club account….lock ‘em up!!!
1 Go to commentsActually the era defining moment came a few years earlier. February 2002 to be precise, when Michael D Higgins as finance minister at the time introduced his sports persons tax relief bill to the dial. As the politicians of the day stated “It seems to be another daft K Club frolic born in Kildare amongst the well-paid professional jockeys with whom the Minister plays golf” and that the scheme represented “a savage uncaring vision of Ireland and one that should be condemned”. The irfu and Leinster would be nowhere near the position they are in today without this key component of the finances.
3 Go to commentsIt is crystal clear that people who make such threats on line should be tried and imprisoned. Those with responsibility in social media companies who don’t facilitate this should be convicted. In real life, I have free speech to approach someone like Reinach and verbally threaten him. I am risking a conviction or a slap but I could do it. In the old days, If someone anonymously threatened someone by letter the police would ask and use evidence from the postal system. Unlike the Post, social media companies have complete instant and legal access to the content in social media. They make money from the data, billions. Yet, they turn a blind eye to terrorism, Nazi-ism and industrial levels of threats against individuals including their address and childrens schools being published online all from ananoymous accounts not real people. They claim free speech. Free speech for anonymous trolls/voilent thugs threatening people under false names? The fault is with the perps but also social media companies who think anonymous personas posting death threats constitutes free speech.
2 Go to commentsSo if this ain’t the best Irish team ever then who exactly is? I don’t remember any other Irish team being this good & winning a series in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Yes I may rip them often for 8 X QF RWC exits & twice not even making it to the QF, but they’re a damn good team who many think can only improve, including me!
69 Go to commentsNot a squeek out of Leinster for weeks about this match. So quiet. The first team have been quitely building for this encounter under Nienaber’s direction. All fresh, all highly motivated. They are expecting a season’s best performance from Northhampton. They will match that. They will be fresher and apparently they will have 80,000 out of the 83,000 shouting for them. I do expect Northhampton to turn up big time. Not to be missed. On a tangent it is evident how the loss of a few Premiership teams has in some respect helped other Premiership teams and England. More quality over less teams makes the teams better, which has a knock on effect on England. Not the only factor contributing to England’s rise but one of them.
3 Go to commentsOur very own monster teddy bear Ox😍💪
17 Go to commentsThis is might be the most generalised, entitled, patronising, out-of-pocket cultural indictment on a group of people you’ll ever see on what is supposedly a sports publication. I can only assume the author is weak like a woman or homosexual. I’m feeling an incredible range of emotions but I am not quite sure how to express them. I might go beat up a hockey player - assuming that’s okay with Duane and the boys? 🙂
9 Go to commentsBest thing the Welsh clubs could do is apply to join Gallagher prem surely be more exciting matches for there support than they have now.
2 Go to commentsRugbyPass writers are useless! you guys should get a real job because you all suck at writing about rugby!!!
9 Go to commentslooking forward to RWC2027 …. Boks on mission impossible for the Three-in-a-row, ABs to prove they being on par, France wishing to crown the “DuPont-era”, Ireland knocking on the Semi-Door ….. until then we’ll probably have to deal with Weird Ben’s fantasy-RWC23 (fun fact is, the drivel always creates a flooding of comments) …..
223 Go to commentsBen Smith you really make some good points in this article, the Springboks were not close to perfect and good still beat the All Blacks, imagine if they were as good as they were against France what a hiding the All Blacks would have gotten… maybe another Twickenham drubbing
223 Go to comments