Wigglesworth gets four-week ban for breaching Covid rules

SCRUM-HALF WILL MISS TWO EUROPEAN CHALLENGE CUP MATCHES AND ALSO TWO PREMIERSHIP GAMES

LEICESTER Tigers scrum-half Richard Wigglesworth has been handed an immediate four-week suspension for his part in the Barbarians Covid-19 Code of Conduct rule breach.

The actions of the players prompted the uncapped international between the famous invitational side and England at Twickenham to be cancelled, denying Eddie Jones his only warm-up match ahead of the rearranged Six Nations final round clash with Italy.

All the players involved – Wigglesworth, Alex Lewington, Fergus McFadden, Juan Pablo Socino, Chris Robshaw, Jackson Wray, Calum Clark, Sean Maitland, Tim Swinson, Tom de Glanville, Joel Kpoku, Manu Vunipola and Simon Kerrod – accepted the charges and the independent panel has determined a range of sanctions according to the severity of the breaches.

The total charges across 13 players are 85 weeks of match bans with 44 weeks suspended subject to conditions being met and 41 weeks of bans to be taken concurrently. Players have also been fined a total of 18.5 weeks salary and given a total of 630 hours of community service.

Wigglesworth, who left Saracens at the end of the 2019/20 season before being announced as a

Tigers player on November 6, received a suspension of five weeks – three of which are suspended – and two weeks immediate suspension.

For two additional Covid breaches, he received a suspension of one week concurrent for each additional offence, and for providing a false account, he received two weeks to run consecutively.

His total immediate suspension is four weeks, ruling him out of Tigers’ European Challenge Cup games against Brive and Bayonne and the Premiership games with Newcastle Falcons and Bath either side of New Year’s Day.

Wigglesworth, right, will next be available for Tigers on January 9 for the trip to Franklin’s Gardens to face Northampton Saints.

Leicester Tigers head coach Steve Borthwick was told of the ban moments before his midweek media session in the build-up to Friday night’s visit of Brive to the Mattiolo Woods Welford Road.

“Clearly I am disappointed that Richard will be unavailable for four games,” he said.

“Now we have good competition for places at scrum-half.

“With Richard suspended for four games, you have Jack van Poortvliet, Ben Youngs and Ben White. So we have three good scrumhalves there, clearly.

“Ben [Youngs] needs a break as well, he’s played a lot of international rugby.

“So what you do, is, make sure that through these four weeks that we have scrum-halves fighting for that position and that’s a good position to be in.”

In these four weeks he’s suspended we want our other scrum-halves fighting for that position Steve Borthwick