Senior 1 HSOB player suspended for ‘tip tackle’

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RUGBY

A HIGH School Old Boys Senior 1 rugby player has been suspended for four weeks for a tip tackle.

Noah Tonga was ordered off by referee Paul Brown, who had already given him two warnings for dangerous tackles, in the game against Waikohu on May 25.

The Poverty Bay Rugby Football Union’s judicial committee found the tackled player’s legs were lifted and that it was a dangerous tackle.

However, the player’s legs did not go above shoulder height and his head was not the first part of his body to hit the ground.

The committee accepted the referee’s version of events, that the tackled player was driven towards the ground.

The player was not injured.

Tonga could have been facing a ban of at least six weeks but the committee chose to treat the incident as “a lesser offence of tackling or grasping an oppponent whose feet are off the ground”.

Four weeks is at the low end for that type of offence.

The send-off in the game at the Oval was 10 minutes into the second half and Waikohu went on to win the match 41-28.

The committee also gave OBM sideline official Robert Tata a warning for running on to the field and trying to separate one of his players from an altercation.

The incident was at a premier club game against Ngatapa at the Oval on May 25.

One of his players, he thought, had complained of being stomped on the head. It turned out it was a stomp on the hand.

Tata ran on to the field to help the injured player.

His intentions were “entirely peaceful”, the committee found, but a breach of the rules.

Both cases can be appealed to the rugby union within seven days.