{"id":412058,"date":"2026-04-22T17:02:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T17:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/412058\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T17:02:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T17:02:25","slug":"deegan-banned-for-leinsters-champions-cup-semi-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/412058\/","title":{"rendered":"Deegan banned for Leinster’s Champions Cup semi-final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Deegan will miss Leinster’s Champions Cup semi-final against Toulon after receiving a two-match ban for his red card against Ulster.<\/p>\n

The back row forward, capped four times by Ireland, was sent off in the 60th minute of Leinster’s 29-21 BKT URC win over Ulster<\/a> last Friday.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old made contact with Ulster winger Werner Kok in the air and was shown a yellow card by referee Andrew Brace (below), with the colour upgraded to red following an off-field review.<\/p>\n

\"17<\/p>\n

Deegan was handed a four-week ban as the offence was deemed to be ‘low-end’ and the forward received a 50% mitigation due to “his apology, clean record and good conduct throughout the disciplinary process”.<\/p>\n

The Dubliner has played 19 games for Leo Cullen’s side this season, including one start and five replacement appearances in the Investec Champions Cup.<\/p>\n

He will now be ineligible for Saturday’s visit to Benetton and the following weekend’s European semi-final at Aviva Stadium.<\/p>\n

The URC said: “After an act of foul play by player No 20 (Deegan), referee Andrew Brace showed the Player a Red card in the 60th minute of the game under Law 9.17 \u2013 A player must not tackle, charge, pull, push or grasp an opponent whose feet are off the ground.<\/p>\n

“In the Player’s responses to the Judicial Officer (Achille Reali, Italy) overseeing the disciplinary process, he had accepted that he had committed an act of foul play which warranted a Red Card.<\/p>\n

“Mr Reali found that the incident met the Red card threshold, with entry of low-end warranting a four-week suspension.<\/p>\n

“The Player received two weeks (50%) mitigation due to his apology, clean record and good conduct throughout the disciplinary process which results in a two-game suspension.”<\/p>\n

\"Deegan
\nKok was unhurt after the challenge<\/p>\n

Ireland and Leinster back rows Caelan Doris and Josh van der Flier are to be assessed this week after missing out recently, while Ryan Baird is unavailable.<\/p>\n

Scott Penny, Alex Soroka and James Culhane started against Ulster, while Will Connors came off the bench and Jack Conan was rested.<\/p>\n

Ireland hooker Dan Sheehan played last 15 minutes of the Champions Cup quarter-final win over Sale in the back row and could be an option.<\/p>\n

Listen to the RT\u00c9 Rugby podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>, and email us at sportpodcasts@rte.ie<\/p>\n

\n

Follow our live blog on Munster v Ulster in the URC on Saturday from 5.30pm on RT\u00c9.ie\/sport and RT\u00c9 News app and listen to Saturday Sport on RT\u00c9 Radio 1<\/p>\n

Follow our live blog on France v Ireland in the Women’s Six Nations on Saturday from 8.10pm on RT\u00c9.ie\/sport and RT\u00c9 News app and listen to Saturday Sport on RT\u00c9 Radio 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Deegan will miss Leinster’s Champions Cup semi-final against Toulon after receiving a two-match ban for his red…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-412058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}