English rugby badboy Dylan Hartley will not be eligible to play in the first match of the Rugby World Cup later this year if he is named in the final squad after being suspended for four weeks on Tuesday.
The 29-year-old hooker — capped 66 times — received the suspension after pleading guilty at a disciplinary hearing for headbutting Saracens Jamie George during the second half of his club Northampton’s Premiership semi-final defeat last Saturday.
The New Zealand-born forward — who has now accrued 54 weeks in total of bans during his career — will miss England’s three World Cup warm-up games and the tournament opener against Fiji at Twickenham on September 18.
Hartley will have to wait and see whether England coach Stuart Lancaster will overlook his most recent indiscretion of many and select him in the final squad.
“This offence falls within the low entry point for striking with the head,” said Sean Enright, who chaired the hearing.
“There was no significant injury to the other party, the opposition player was not removed from the field of play and the incident did not affect the game.
“However there cannot be any place in our game for this class of behaviour, and that is why we have imposed this sanction.”
Lancaster — who on a previous occasion said he would make ‘crystal clear’ to the Kiwi that ‘discipline has to be top-notch’ — will name a final 31-man squad in late-August.
In total Hartley has been banned for 50 weeks during his career, including a 26-week suspension for eye-gouging in 2007 and an eight-week ban for biting in 2012.
Two years ago, he was banned for 11 weeks after being sent off for abusing referee Wayne Barnes during the Premiership final against Leicester, causing him to miss the British and Irish Lions’ tour of Australia and prompted him rather prematurely as it has turned out to say he was on his ‘last chance’ with England.
Leicester’s Tom Youngs is expected to be Lancaster’s first-choice hooker at the World Cup, but the England coach would be loath to lose a player of Hartley’s experience.