The Committee, chaired by Pat Barriscale (Ireland), along with Marco Cordelli (Italy) and Dr Barry O'Driscoll (Ireland), viewed video of the incident and listened to the player and his representatives, and decided that the tackle was correctly classified under Law 10.4 (j) and that it warranted a red card.
The Committee found that the tackle should be categorised at the low end of the IRB's scale of offending (which carries an entry point of 4 weeks). They applied an additional one week to reflect the IRB's requirement for a deterrent for this type of dangerous tackle but allowed the maximum 2 weeks of mitigation to reflect particularly the player's remorse, his conduct at the hearing and his previous clear disciplinary record. Howells was therefore suspended for 3 weeks in total.
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