Red-carded Peter O'Mahony cleared to play

Munster skipper Peter O’Mahony has been cleared to play despite last weekend’s red card near the end of his team’s Guinness PRO14 win at Scarlets. 

The Ireland flanker was shown two separate yellow cards by referee Sam Grove-White during the game at Parc Y Scarlets, receiving the second of those for an intervention at the pile-up that followed Chris Farrell’s second-half try. 

Munster are due to face Edinburgh in round two of the new 2020/21 campaign and O’Mahony is available for selection following a PRO14 disciplinary ruling.

Here’s the debut episode of RugbyPod Offload, the new podcast featuring Dylan Hartley, Jamie Roberts, Simon Zebo and Ryan Wilson

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A statement from the tournament organisers read: “The judicial officer, Kathrine Mackie of Scotland, found after referring to the methodology in the disciplinary rules and the application of mitigating and aggravating features, that the sending off was sufficient. The player is available for selection on Saturday.”

Munster meekly bowed out at the semi-final stages of the restarted 2019/20 PRO14 campaign last month, losing to Leinster, and the trip to Scarlets was their first outing in the weeks in between that loss and the start of the new league season.

Nine penalties from Leigh Halfpenny had put @scarlets_rugby in pole position against 14-man @Munsterrugby…

But a rousing comeback was sealed with the final kick of the game with the clock in the red ?

Fair result?#GuinnessPRO14 highlights ??? pic.twitter.com/DWL1fHm1gR

— BKT United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial) October 3, 2020

Despite getting into disciplinary trouble last weekend in Wales, O’Mahony was named in the 35-strong Ireland squad named by Andy Farrell on Thursday ahead of the rescheduled Six Nations matches later this month against Italy and France.   

O’Mahony was one of eight Munster players to make the cut. Andrew Conway, Shane Daly, Chris Farrell, Conor Murray, Tadhg Beirne, John Ryan, and CJ Stander were the other seven included while Craig Casey and Fineen Wycherley will train with Farrell’s squad next week in Dublin.   

On the injury front, Munster, who revealed one unnamed senior player tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this week, have lost Niall Scannell for two months as he requires surgery next week following a neck problem that happened in training.    

Keith Earls, who missed out on Ireland selection, was also reported to be rehabbing a back injury.

Big Dev's warmly-received comeback earlier this year has now been forgotten https://t.co/12IXslePp6

— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) October 8, 2020