Mark Cueto will appear before a Twickenham disciplinary panel on Monday to answer a charge of eye-gouging that could wreck his ambition of playing for England in this year's World Cup.
The 31-year-old Sale wing, who controversially had a try ruled out in the 2007 final against South Africa in Paris, was on Wednesday cited for allegedly making contact with the eye or eye area of a former team-mate at Edgeley Park, the Northampton lock Christian Day, during Sale's Premiership defeat at Franklin's Gardens last Saturday. The pair were embroiled in a fight on the ground while play was going on and the aftermath of the incident led to the Sale hooker Neil Briggs being sent off after he received a second yellow card.
Even if the three-man disciplinary panel finds that any contact was inadvertent, Cueto would still be facing a 12-week ban, the suspension handed out to the Cardiff Blues and Wales scrum-half, Richie Rees, who was cited last December for making contact with the eye area of another Northampton player, Dylan Hartley, and found guilty.
Cueto has started all nine of England's internationals this season and is an integral member of the team. A three-month lay-off would mean he would miss the rest of the season – Sale have three matches left after Friday night's encounter with Gloucester – but he would be back a month before the start of England's World Cup warm-ups in August. But if he is found guilty of a deliberate act, he would be looking at a ban of anything from 12 weeks to three years. The recommended suspension for a top-end offence is 24 weeks, which would put him out of the World Cup reckoning. England's first match in New Zealand is on 10 September against Argentina.
The former Northampton flanker Neil Best was suspended for 18 weeks in 2008 for gouging James Haskell during a league match against Wasps, and Hartley missed the 2007 World Cup after being given a six-month ban for gouging.
Hefty sanctions have been imposed on French players in the Heineken Cup in recent seasons, including the international scrum-half Julien Dupuy, who last year received a 24-week suspension, reduced by one week on appeal, for gouging the flanker Stephen Ferris during a Heineken Cup match between Stade Français and Ulster.
Dupuy's team-mate David Attoub was given 70 weeks for the same offence against Ferris in the same match. He had a longer ban because it was not his first appearance before a disciplinary panel and the French will be waiting for the outcome of Monday's hearing with interest.
The Stade president, Max Guazzini, claimed last year that there was an English conspiracy against the French clubs in disciplinary rooms after citings in the Heineken Cup and the Amlin Challenge Cup. The International Rugby Board launched a crackdown on gouging in 2009 after a number of incidents, including Schalk Burger on Luke Fitzgerald during the 2009 Lions tour to South Africa, attracted relatively short bans and the minimum suspension was set at 12 weeks. The Rugby Football Union's chief disciplinary officer, Jeff Blackett, is a supporter of the hardline stance, regarding deliberate gouging as one of the most contemptible acts of foul play in the game.
