Banned.

England winger Chris Ashton has been handed a seven week ban after his red card for a tip tackle in Sale Sharks’ pre-season friendly against Castres.

The 31-year-old former Saracens and Northampton star did not accept the charge for the tackle on Castres scrum-half Rory Kockott, but was found guilty by the independent panel process.

Ashton, who joined Sale from Toulon this summer, will miss the first six rounds of the Premiership campaign.

Independent panel chair Richard Whittam QC said:

“It is an important principle of rugby regulation to prevent injury to others. Provocation is not a defence to foul play and lifting a player and dropping that player such that his head makes contact with the ground has the potential to cause serious injury. While in this case the panel accepts no injury was caused, it still amounted to foul play that clearly met the red card threshold.

“The absence of injury and that the action was as a result of a level of provocation, meant that the panel found this was a low-end entry point. Mr Ashton’s poor disciplinary record was an aggravating feature and the panel added one week to reflect that. The panel considered at length the prescriptive list of factors in relation to mitigation, but none were sufficient to reduce the length of the sanction.”

He is free to play again on Tuesday 9 October 2018.