Wallabies winger Reece Hodge has been found guilty of a dangerous tackle during a four-hour judicial hearing in Tokyo earlier today.
Hodge will now serve a three week ban after being found guilty and will now miss the remainder of Australia’s Rugby World Cup pool stages.
The incident that he was cited for was a high tackle with no arms being used in the 26th minute of Saturday’s win over Fiji when he prevented forward Peleli Sato from scoring a certain try and resulted in Sato missing the remainder of the game and Wednesday’s clash with Uruguay due to concussion.
The committee looked at all the evidence they had available which included the multiple broadcast angles and found that Hodges tackle warranted a red card considering the high tackle framework in place.
There was an act of foul play (which was reckless, rather than deliberate);
The act of foul play was a high tackle;
There was contact with the head;
There was a high degree of danger.
With that in mind they gave Hodge a mid-range entry point ban, which was six-weeks, however, due to his exemplary disciplinary record and his character at the hearing and therefore reduced the ban to three weeks.
His ban will end on October 12th and will mean that should the Wallabies qualify from the pool stages he will be available for selection for the quarter-final stages, but he does have a right to appeal the ban over the next 48 hours.
Elsewhere, Samoa’s Rey Lee-Lo and Motu Matu’u have also been cited for high-tackles during their game with Russia yesterday in which they both received yellow cards and will now have to see if they follow the same footsteps as Reece Hodge.
