Former New Zealand Sevens and current Tongan international Pita Ahki took to X, formerly Twitter, to vent his frustration.
“George Moala has a clear record and World Rugby has given him 10 weeks for a tip tackle?” Ahki wrote.
“This guy [Farrell] has had how many red cards and gets off clean? How? F*** this pisses me off.”
Former All Black Steven Luatua wrote on X: “No ban? What a joke.”
Tongan lock Sam Lousi said “tier two teams really do get treated differently”.
Meanwhile, one rugby fan wrote on X that the bias between tier one and two nations was “unreal”.
“Owen Farrell has had his red card for this vulgar ‘tackle’ overturned so he can play at the World Cup,” Ben Rogers wrote.
“If he played for any tier two nation, he’d have had the book thrown at him.”
Farrell appeared before an independent judicial committee via video link and denied the tackle was worthy of a red card while accepting he committed an act of foul play.
The committee said upgrading the offence to a red card was wrong because of the “sudden and significant change in direction from the ball carrier”.
“In the committee’s opinion,” it said, “this mitigation was sufficient to bring the player’s act of foul play below the red card threshold.”
The committee did not uphold the red card and said Farrell was free to play again immediately.
Farrell could have faced a mid-range sanction of a six-week suspension, which would have ruled him out of some of England’s pool-stage matches at the World Cup in France starting on September 8.
England’s opening game at the World Cup is against Argentina on September 9.
— with AP
