Joe Schmidt has revealed that a potential six-week suspension was the reason why he left Devin Toner out of Ireland's Rugby World Cup squad.
The former Ireland head coach and his management team were alerted that the citing commissioner was looking at an incident involving Toner from their 22-17 win over Wales in Cardiff.
In his new autobiography Ordinary Joe seen by the Irish Times, Schmidt writes: "We hadn’t noticed the incident at the time, but we reviewed the incident and it didn’t look good.
“We had been warned by Alain Rolland, in his presentation to us, that any shoulder-to-head contact was likely to have a starting entry point of a six-week suspension.
"It was a difficult call, but we decided to go with Tadhg Beirne, who can play both secondrow and backrow, and Jean Kleyn, the only specialist tighthead-scrummaging secondrow in the squad.”
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