Julien Dupuy must face year ban, says Shaun Edwards

Foul play: Julien Dupuy and Stade Francais team‑mate David Attoub have both been cited for allegedly eye-gouging
13 April 2012

Shaun Edwards is calling for France scrum-half Julien Dupuy to be banned for a year if he is found guilty of eye-gouging.

Dupuy and Stade Francais teammate David Attoub have both been cited for allegedly eye-gouging Ulster's Stephen Ferris during the French side's 23-13 Heineken Cup defeat at Ravenshill on Saturday.

Flanker Ferris was treated on the pitch and after the game said he had felt "numerous fingers" in his eye. The minimum penalty for gouging is three months but after watching TV footage of the incident involving Dupuy, Edwards has called for stiffer punishments.

"It's the worst thing a player could do - there is just no place for it in the game," said the London Wasps head coach.

"He needs to get a serious ban for that. To do it against a fellow professional is out of order."

Tournament chiefs have yet to fix a date for the hearing but any punishment would potentially cover the whole of the Six Nations, which runs from the first weekend of February until 20 March.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in