With Northampton arranging for a consultant neurosurgeon to help assess whether George North is fit to return to play after being knocked unconscious last Friday, the Wasps director of rugby Dai Young has reiterated that the man who caused the injury, Nathan Hughes, did so unwittingly.
The RFU’s disciplinary committee on Tuesday night found Hughes guilty of striking with the knee and/or shin and subsequently banned the 23-year-old – who was sent off after colliding with North and catching his head with his knee – for three weeks with immediate effect. He is free to play again on 28 April.
While the verdict was pending, Young insisted that he didn’t think the offence “was a red card”, and that the dismissal itself had been punishment enough. He said that if Hughes was banned the club would appeal against the decision.
“First and foremost, thankfully George is OK,” said Young. “But we believe it would be really harsh and a real shame if there was a ban on the back of this, because this is probably the biggest game Nathan will play [Sunday’s European Champions Cup quarfter-final tie at Toulon], and obviously a ban would penalise Nathan and the team.”
Wasps’ captain, James Haskell, was even more adamant. “I don’t think it is anything really,” he said of the incident. “I don’t think it should have been a red card at all. He tries to slow down, and he catches George.”
Haskell, perhaps unsurprisingly, takes a somewhat unreconstructed view of the issues. “Rugby is a contact sport. That is what happens. I think they’ve changed the wording of the laws now, something to do with being reckless, but rugby is reckless, the whole game is reckless. If you’re going to worry about that, I don’t really know what we should be doing. Maybe we should all be wearing foam suits and playing touch.”
Hughes has played in 26 of Wasps 30 matches so far this season, and scored 10 tries in that time.
