LYON, France — Namibia captain Johan Deysel was suspended for six games on Tuesday for the dangerous head-on-head tackle on France captain Antoine Dupont at the Rugby World Cup.
Dupont suffered a facial fracture that required surgery on Friday night, a day after the game in Marseille where France won 96-0.
Deysel’s yellow card for the incident soon after halftime was upgraded to red by a bunker review. He accepted his offense was red-card worthy at his judicial hearing on Tuesday.
The panel “categorized the act of foul play as being at the top end of the scale of seriousness of offending, having regard to the degree of recklessness involved in the offending, the vulnerability of the victim player and the significant injury to him.”
For a sanction, the panel started at 12 weeks and halved it after taking into account Deysel’s disciplinary record and apology to Dupont.
His six-match ban was to include Namibia’s last Pool A game on Wednesday against Uruguay, for which he wasn’t picked, and five other games to be determined. He could reduce the ban by one game if he attended tackle school.
France hasn’t said when Dupont, the poster boy of the home tournament, will return.
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