Wales enforcer laughs off red card punch from 120kg opposite man
You do not see many punches thrown anymore in professional rugby, as it basically means an instant red card for any player throwing one.
So Scarlets No8 Sione Kalamafoni would have known his fate as soon as he threw his right hand at Ross Moriarty on Sunday at Parc y Scarlets. What made it worse for him though was that Moriarty just stood there and laughed in his face.
This all happened on 33 minutes in a United Rugby Championship derby between the Scarlets and the Dragons. During a melee involving many players, Moriarty was seen pulling Kalamafoni’s scrum-cap off his head. After having the headgear ripped off completely, Kalamafoni stood up and threw a barrage of punches that perhaps belonged in another era.
It was pretty easy for referee Ben Whitehouse to show the Tonga international a red, but Moriarty did not get away with it completely, as he was also shown a yellow card.
Despite playing the majority of the match with only 14 men, the Scarlets still came away with a 33-17 win to close the gap between them and the Dragons in the URC table, with the Dragons sitting in 14th place with 17 points and the Scarlets sitting in 15th place with 13 points.
Take a look at the fight and the red card:
Scarlets: Leigh Halfpenny; Johnny McNicholl, Joe Roberts, Scott Williams, Steff Evans, Rhys Patchell, Dane Blacker; Kemsley Mathias, Ken Owens (CAPT), WillGriff John, Vaea Fifita, Sam Lousi, Aaron Shingler, Dan Davis, Sione Kalamafoni
Replacements: Shaun Evans, Steff Thomas, Sam Wainwright, Morgan Jones, Carwyn Tuipulotu, Kieran Hardy, Dan Jones, Jonathan Davies
Dragons RFC: Angus O’Brien, Rio Dyer, Steff Hughes (CAPT), Jack Dixon, Ashton Hewitt, JJ Hanrahan, Lewis Jones, Aki Seiuli, Bradley Roberts, Chris Coleman, Joe Davies, George Nott, Aaron Wainwright, Taine Basham, Ross Moriarty
Replacements: Brodie Coghlan, Rob Evans, Luke Yendle, Matthew Screech, Ben Fry, Che Hope, Sam Davies, Sio Tomkinson
