Clohessy Citing Withdrawn

Following a disciplinary committee hearing in Dublin (Thursday, Jan 17th) to consider the citing cases brought by Munster and Castres Olympique in the wake of their Heineken Cup Pool 4 clash on Saturday, 12 January, the case against Peter Clohessy was withdrawn while the case against Castres number 8, Ismaella Lassisssi was found proven.

The three man disciplinary committee – Terry Vaux (Wales), chairman, John Spencer (England), Doug Hunter (Scotland) – imposed a penalty of 12 months suspension on the Ivory Coast international, atarting from the date of the hearing.

The citing case brought by Castres Olimpique, alleging racial and discriminatory comments against Clohessy were withdrawn prior to the hearing of that particular issue getting under way.

The Munster delegation included Clohessy, his temmate Mick Galwey, team manager Jerry Holland, team doctor Dr. Mick Shinkwin and legal advisor Olan Kelleher, the Cork based solicitor.

The meeting lasted almost three hours and afterwards, speaking to the assembled media about the outcome, Jerry Holland said, ” we are pleased that the serious allegations against Peter Clohessy have been withdrawn. Peter had, from the outset, vehemently denied the charges and we were fully supportive of his stance”.

” It is the first time that Munster have cited a player and we did so because we felt there was a case to answer and because we have a responsibility to our players whose welfare is paramount. We presented the facts to the ERC and they have acted accordingly”.

Under ERC rules the player has 72 hours in which to consider lodging an appeal.