{"id":64440,"date":"2025-09-15T00:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T00:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/64440\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T00:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T00:06:07","slug":"ireland-captain-asked-referee-to-look-at-alleged-bite-by-france-player-in-world-cup-quarter-final-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/64440\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland captain asked referee to look at alleged bite by France player in World Cup quarter-final \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland <\/a>captain Sam Monaghan has said she spoke to the officials about a biting allegation against a French player during Sunday\u2019s World Cup <\/a>quarter-final at Sandy Park. <\/p>\n

Early in the second half, Irish backrow Aoife Wafer<\/a> emerged from a ruck pointing at her arm after securing a jackal turnover. A few moments later, a number of Irish players pointed towards the big screen after seeing replays of the incident. <\/p>\n

Footage soon emerged on social media of the ruck in question.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke to the referee, I didn\u2019t see it,\u201d said Monaghan. \u201cI spoke to the referee and asked could they have a look at it. [The check] was through TMO.\u201d<\/p>\n

It emerged later that flanker Axelle Berthoumieu had been cited for an action contrary to Law 9.12 (biting), while second row Manae Felu was cited for an action contrary to Law 9.13 (dangerous tackling).<\/p>\n

When asked about the ramifications of an alleged bite not being punished, Ireland head coach Scott Bemand said he would not \u201cget drawn into\u201d the discussion at this stage. \u201cWe\u2019ve literally just stepped off the pitch,\u201d he said. \u201cIf there\u2019s any bits to pick up, we\u2019ll pick up in the next hour.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think in terms of process, your on pitch leadership would mention to the referee. Then it\u2019s up to the team officials to deal with it should they see fit at that point. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to get drawn into anything at this point. at the moment, I haven\u2019t seen anything. As I said I\u2019ve literally stepped in here. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf there are bits to pursue, we could potentially be disappointed but we\u2019ve followed the process as best we can from our perspective in terms of the on-pitch conversations.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ireland fullback Stacey Flood added that the decision to review the allegation was not in Ireland\u2019s control. \u201cI think that\u2019s down to the officials on the day,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf the girls see that, we have to get on with it. It\u2019s not our decision to make. It was said to the referee, if it\u2019s not taken up there\u2019s nothing we can do about it. We have to live in the moment. Hopefully it does get looked at but that\u2019s not up to us. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in a very sportsmanship game, rugby is that. It\u2019s about people looking at themselves and maybe taking a step back. Maybe it\u2019s just in the moment, you go red for a bit. I don\u2019t think anyone really means that. Hopefully it\u2019s looked at and it gets sorted off-field.\u201d <\/p>\n

When asked about the incident, French coach Gaelle Mignot said she had not seen it. \u201cWe have not seen the images,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have been celebrating in the changing rooms. We will see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Ireland do want to refer the allegation to World Rugby, they have four hours from full-time to submit a request. The citing commissioner can call for a disciplinary review within 12 hours.<\/p>\n

Ireland led for much of the contest until Joanna Grisez\u2019s 66th-minute try earned France a lead they never relinquished. The game ended with a series of Irish attacks inside the French 22, a France knock-on at a lineout ending the game with the clock in the red.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really proud, really proud of the group and where they\u2019ve come from in the last two years,\u201d said Bemand on the performance as a whole. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a tough Test match today, the occasion – you think a year ago, that group might have felt the occasion more but I could see it in the eyes of the players when they stepped off the bus… <\/p>\n

\u201cThe crowd was singing the Field of Athenry and our group don\u2019t get daunted by that any more. They get excited by it. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a tough Test match in terms of conditions, we tried to play the conditions really, really well. There were some bits that worked, some bits put us under pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd with a young group, we\u2019ve always been talking about the next four year cycle as well, we know that this group is going to stick together, and this group\u2019s going to get better and better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland captain Sam Monaghan has said she spoke to the officials about a biting allegation against a French…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[43350,9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,18336,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,35307],"class_list":{"0":"post-64440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-aoife-wafer","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-ireland-womens-rugby","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories","25":"tag-womens-rugby-world-cup"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}