Australia flanker and vice-captain Michael Hooper has been given a one week ban after being cited for striking Argentina’s Nicholas Sanchez in the Rugby Championship encounter last weekend.
Given that Hooper is technically available for Manly in their Shute Shield game this weekend, he will serve his ban then and be available for the Wallabies’ championship-deciding game against New Zealand on August 8th. Several Wallaby bench players, including Kurtley Beale and Quade Cooper, were allegedly released with a view to playing in the domestic cup this weekend – although whether they will actually feature a week away from a Bledisloe Cup game, remains to be seen.
In his ruling, Nigel Hampton found that Hooper had used an open hand to strike Sanchez, but that it still constituted striking at the very lowest end of the scale. A two week ban was imposed, before it was reduced to one for Hooper’s previously clean record.
Hampton said Sanchez holding Hooper was “deliberate, illegal and an act of considerable provocation”, but that retaliation of any kind was not acceptable, hence the ban.
What do you make of the ban? View the incident again below, then vote in our poll:
Video credit: new viral7
Is Hooper's ban fair in length?
- Yes (14%, 10 Votes)
- No, it should have been longer (81%, 57 Votes)
- No, it should have been shorter (4%, 3 Votes)
Total Voters: 70
Loading ...Photo by: Patrick Khachfe / Onside Images
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What a joke, like he was going to play this weekend rather than train with the Wallabies!
Utter, utter nonsense, if he did that on weekend night out on the pop he’d face an assault charge and a conviction bang to rights.
‘He pulled my arm so I smacked him of the side/rear of the head when he was looking the other way m’lord’
Not often i agree with you Enoch, but you are absolutely on the money here
This is an absurdly short ban that in no way punishes Hooper for his actions
You’re not ‘listening’ Pab!
And it does actually, ‘in some way punishe Hooper for his actions’, by a wk.
So the perpetrator gets off scot-free?
Surely justice should be done. Surely It wasn’t. In light of the adjudicator’s ruling that ‘Sanchez holding Hooper was “deliberate, illegal and an act of considerable provocation”’, so logically & in the interests of ‘common justice’, Sanchez too should have been sanctioned. After all (as already mentioned elsewhere), without his action, there would have been no reaction.
It’s an anomaly & a failing of the system not to punish both provocateur & retaliator.
Perhaps the ‘sentence’ was lenient, thus reflecting Sanchez’s provocation? And it was only a slap. In Old Testament terms, was it even ‘an eye for an eye’?
Some yrs ago now, Colin Meads broke Norman Gale’s jaw for holding his jersey. Nought came of the incident. Pretty rough ‘justice’ & I don’t condone that act, but Gale didn’t illegally pull any more jerseys for awhile, that’s for sure.
Times have changed it seems.
In sport galilei & newton laws do not work
Should have been a verbal warning only for Hooper. Nothing in it, just a reasonable reaction to a cheating bastard stopping the man from continuing his support run (not that Mumms on beast mode needed any such support).
Sanchez, on the other hand, should have received the maximum ban possible for “simulation”, which in my fantasy world is sanctioned with an eight-weeks ban and being forced to play your next match with your willy hanging out.
What a farce. You are bang on Prophet .That’s got 6 weeks written all over it