The shocking red card tackle Antoine Dupont brushed off from France teammate
It has not been a good few days for La Rochelle loosehead Reda Wardi, who has been replaced by Jerome Rey in France’s squad for the upcoming autumn internationals.
Then again, the reason he has been replaced is because he is banned. The reason he is banned is because he was red carded for a tackle on France captain Antoine Dupont, and he can have no complaints about the card.
The 27-year-old was shown red on 12 minutes in his side’s visit to Toulouse on Sunday, and it basically ticked every box in determining whether it was a red or not. It was a shoulder straight to the head of Dupont with the prop showing absolutely no effort to lower his tackle height. On top of that, Dupont had already passed the ball before being hit. Wardi looked pretty distraught as he left the field, probably because he knew a ban would rule him out of France’s autumn, but it was definitely the right call be the referee.
Even though Dupont initially protested as soon as he felt the shoulder hit his face and while he was falling to the ground, he immediately got back up to play on, which is testament to his durability.
Despite being down to 14 men for the majority of the match, La Rochelle did not roll over and die, although they did fall short in the end, losing 26-17 to leave them third in the Top 14 table and leaving Toulouse at the top.
Take a look at the red card:
