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Taniela Tupou has had his foul play charge dismissed by a SANZAAR judicial committee hearing and he is free to play against the NSW Waratahs on Saturday.
Tupou was cited for a clean out on Jahrome Brown against the Brumbies in the 19th mionute of the Reds loss last weekend.
Neither referee Damon Murphy nor the TMO had an issue with the clean out but was later charged with contravening Law Law 9.20 Dangerous play in a ruck or maul .
The SANZAAR judicial hearing held via video conference on Wednesday where the case was heard by Nigel Hampton QC, (Chair), Helen Morgan and De Wet Barry.
“The Judicial Committee conducted a detailed review of all the available evidence, including all camera angles, and submissions from the player, and the Player’s legal representative, Mark Martin QC,” Hampton said in a statement.
“The Judicial Committee deemed that the Red Card threshold has not been met and the citing was dismissed.
“The Judicial Committee found that there was no evidence of direct contact made by the Player’s shoulder with his opponent’s head. In the event there was any contact with the opponent’s neck it was secondary and of insufficient danger to warrant either a Red or Yellow card.”
“The player is therefore free to resume playing.”
Tupou faced a three-week ban if found guilty, and he had been offered a two week suspension for an early plea before fighting it.
Earlier on Wednesday the Reds named Tupou to start against the Waratahs and were clearly confident he would be cleared.
“We’re under the impression that it was a bit hard done by; we felt that it was shoulder on shoulder, which I’m pretty sure was cleared with the TMO on the night and played on,” said Reds captain Liam Wright on Tuesday.
“With the scrutiny we’ve got on the games at the moment and refs checking a lot of stuff, once it gets cleared on field we expect it to stay that way.”
Wallabies great Chris Latham blew up at the state of rugby saying officials are “killing the game”.
Latham said the Tupou fallout had distracted attention from the Reds game against the Tahs.
“Yes (it’s frustrating) … I can understand the health and safety aspect, and the mental health of players after football,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
“But from a pure rugby point of view, we’re really killing the game with all these stoppages.
“And this one, cleared by video ref, the referee, the commentary team are experts in the game, they cleared it.
“Yet we still want to keep dragging it through.
“It baffles me that we’re talking about this during the week of one of the biggest games of the calendar, sweating on the outcome of one of the most high-profile players in Australia. It’s ridiculous.”