Ireland star hit with ban after 'out of control' incident vs Wales
Ireland star Garry Ringrose has been hit with a three-match ban following his red card against Wales - although he is unlikely to be ruled out for the remainder of the Six Nations.
Ringrose was sin-binned in the first half in Cardiff on Saturday after he went to tackle Ben Thomas and made head-to-head contact with the Welsh centre. Following a brief TMO review, the Irishman was shown a yellow card by referee Christophe Ridley and sent to the sin bin while footage of the incident was inspected further via the bunker system.
During the half-time break, it was confirmed that the yellow card had been upgraded to a red, but due to the law that is being trialled during the Six Nations, Ireland were only reduced to 14 men for 20 minutes.
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And Ireland are likely to be without Ringrose for only one match. It has been confirmed that the 30-year-old's three-game ban will be reduced to two if he attends tackle school, while Leinster's game against Cardiff this weekend counts towards that ban.
In essence, it means that Ringrose will miss only the France game and will return to the fold for the final weekend clash against Italy, provided he attends tackle school
The 20-minute red card law his been criticised by some. After Ringrose's dismissal in Cardiff, interim head coach Simon Easterby was able to replace the centre, with Bundee Aki coming on for the men in green.
While Wales had made the most of their brief man advantage with tries from Jac Morgan and Tom Rogers, Aki entering the fray saw Ireland spark back into life with the 34-year-old helping his side come from eight points down to win 27-18.
Ireland international Luke Fitzgerald later slammed the 20-minute red card law trial following Ringrose's red.
While he was happy to see his nation triumph to keep their Grand Slam hopes alive, Fitzgerald was less than impressed by what he saw unfold as he said Ireland were "very lucky" not to have been a man down for the rest of the match. Suggesting that the "out of control" Ringrose was deserving of a permanent red, he hit out at the "garbage" law trial which allowed Aki to replace him in the Irish midfield.
“20-minute red card is garbage – Ireland very lucky,” he wrote on X. “Out of control coming into the contact area as is evident from the feet (gets him massive contacts but why he misses a lot & gets himself in bad positions).
“Massive GR fan, but I’ve been banging on about this for ages – Irl lucky.”
After Saturday's match, Easterby said the decision that saw the centre sent off could "go either way" and insisted he was "certainly far from a dirty player".
“Ringer is a great player for us, everything he does is with intent, in terms of the speed he works at," he said. "That’s probably what cost him there, the speed of his movement off the line and he just doesn’t quite drop enough.
“He’s certainly far from a dirty player, it’s just one of those things, it could have gone either way. It could have been a yellow. There was another incident late in the game that could have gone either way.
“It didn’t fall in our favour, these things happen," Easterby added. "I was pleased with how the lads responded to that, even though we conceded at the end of the first half we found our way back into the game when we were down a man and Bundee coming on made a huge impact.”
