Off-field yellow cards for brawling pair
Cheetahs loose forward Ashley Johnson and Stormers hooker Deon Fourie have been issued with off-field yellow cards for their parts in the brawl that broke out between the Cheetahs and Stormers on Saturday’s clash at Newlands.
The citing was for contravening Law 10.4 (m) Acts Contrary to Good Sportsmanship after the scuffle where they began throwing punches at each other. These actions caused a number of players to become involved in several scuffles that broke out following the initial scuffle in the 55th minutes of the match.
An off-field yellow card may be issued by the SANZAR citing commissioner for foul play incidents that are very close to, but in his opinion do not meet the red card threshold for citings.
In this case the incident was acted on by the referee for the match: Steve Walsh who penalised and issued a yellow and white card for a prior incident of foul play to Stormers player Rynhardt Elstadt. Referee Walsh then issued a white card for all of the events that followed on from this.
On further review of the match footage the citing commissioner deemed an off-field yellow card was appropriate for Johnson and Fourie.