Sale Sharks winger Byron McGuigan has been banned for three games after he was sent off for dangerous play in the Premiership loss to Saracens.
The 32-year-old appeared to slam opposing centre Nick Tompkins to the ground in Sunday’s defeat, leading to a red card from referee Tom Foley.
McGuigan accepted the charge at his hearing and will miss the Ospreys, Clermont and Newcastle games.
He will next be available for the home match against Wasps on 1 January.
“Byron trains at UFC on his time off so maybe he just had a flashback of some sort of ultimate fighting session he’s done,” Sale director of rugby Alex Sanderson said following the game.
“He’s a great lad, one of the hardest workers. The emotion, the occasion, the fact we hadn’t scored – I was feeling that too. It probably got the better of him.”
