For the second week running, an elite referee opted out of giving a straight red for what appeared to be an open-and-shut case. Instead Paul Williams issued a yellow and passed the buck to the man in the bunker, just as the Georgian Nika Amashukeli had done at Twickenham over Owen Farrell.
In his case, the FPRO (Fair Play Review Officer), former South African referee Marius van der Westhuizen, did not require the full eight minutes to make it a red. It took barely three minutes for Billy Vunipola’s yellow to turn the same colour.
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