"Didn't agree" - Vunipola handed big ban despite Saracens appeal

The case was heard by an independent disciplinary panel chaired by Jeremy Summers sitting with Mitch Read and Leon Lloyd on Tuesday 2 January.

The player admitted that foul play took place but not that it met the red card threshold.  The panel upheld the charge and Vunipola received a four match ban.  He is ineligible to take part in World Rugby's Coaching Intervention Programme having completed it in 2022.

Vunipola will miss the following games:

The full judgement can be read here. Infographic is available here.

Former England lock Attwood has opened up on the latest RugbyPass Offload about his ongoing rivalry with Owen Farrell.

He revealed: "On the pitch, I struggle a lot with Owen Farrell. We just don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things,

“He hates me with a passion. Despite my earthy roots, he thinks I am a posh c***. He hates that. I bagged rugby league once jovially. I was saying it to take the piss kind of thing, ‘a bloody sport for the peasants’. He f**kin’ hated it.

" I was saying it to take the piss kind of thing, ‘a bloody sport for the peasants’. He f**kin’ hated it and out in Italy or maybe France he fully lost the plot. He had a bit of a shout at me and went off to the toilet and I followed him.

“We all had a drink or two after the game but we didn’t need to get carried away with this. I was in the urinal behind the door and he was three or four down and as I got in his dad walked in as well, he was coaching at the time. He was, ‘I don’t want to fuckin’ hear it’ or something like that and as he walked out he went to open the door and slam it into the back of me. There was like a stop on the floor so it hit the stop and almost clocked him back…

“We never really addressed it after that. 

“So whenever we play each other there is always some element in the game where one of us is running at the other one or we are trying to bang each other. There always seems to be an element of that to it. I am sure he is like, I don’t even know that Dave is playing.”

He made 157 appearances in Blue, Black and White over an eight-year period during his first spell at Bath before returning in 2022

His debut came against Newcastle Falcons at the beginning of the 2011/12 season after arriving from Gloucester, scoring four tries in his first campaign

The lock quickly established himself as a key player in the Bath pack and excelled at international level too, with 22 of his 24 England caps coming whilst at the Re

The former England international has also played for Bristol (twice), Gloucester and Toulon during his established career

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The Scotland back-rower was the instigator in some tunnel argy-bargy when the players returned to the changing rooms after the warm-up back in 2018 with Farrell at the centre.

Footage of the incident shows all hell breaking loose when Farrell barged his way past a number of Scotland players to confront Wilson, who had been attempting to get inside the head of George Ford.

Wilson later revealed he was banned from Twickenham following the incident.

“I remember that game, I was actually injured and after tunnel-gate, after everything that happened in the tunnel against England, I’d lined up a corporate gig at Twickenham,” he recalled to Rugby Pass in November.

“Had it all lined up, a little bit of cash, all excited, only to get a message back saying the RFU have banned you from Twickenham Stadium after everything that happened the year before.

The pair have what we can only describe as a love-hate relationship. As legendary as the 'best mates' videos were during the 2016 tour of Australia, Farrell certainly didn't seem to be enjoying it.

Farrell and De Klerk ended up at arm’s length from each other in 2018 during their summer tour just before the 20-minute mark and the rest of the two sides quickly joined in.

The pair have since clashes on multiple occasions, including during the World Cup final a year later. Klerk is clearly someone who gets under the England skippers skin and their appears to be little love lost between the pair.

Speaking about the pair, Tom Curry said they are 'very different characters'.

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