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It's X-rated but only earned Athlone club’s captain Kolo Kiripati a yellow card in their All Ireland League clash with Ballymena on Saturday.

The footage shows Ballymena and Ulster centre Mark Best in a struggle with Kiripati.

It's doing the rounds on social media after Kiripati can be seen lifting the Ulsterman off the ball and forcefully throwing him to the ground - yet the perpetrator received just 10 minutes in the cooler for his act.

Best stands for a few seconds before collapsing to the ground again in pain.

The game was delayed for half an hour as Best was rushed to hospital following concerns from the club’s doctor, but was released later that evening after undergoing scans and X-rays.

Under Irish Rugby Football Union rules, it states that no retrospective action can be taken against a player.

The video has prompted calls from Andy Graham, the Ballymena rugby head coach, for the IRFU to review its rules surrounding the citing of players in what he called a “loophole” in the system.

“My understanding that if a referee passes out a punishment on the day they have to stick by that and because he gave a yellow card that means the player has been disciplined and they can’t, as part of the rules, punish the player any further,” he said.

“If he had been given a red card he would have been put before a tribunal and they would have looked at all the evidence and went from there.

“This is a loophole as part of the rules and they can’t do much more about it. I saw the video and it wasn’t good. It was disappointing and traumatic for Mark. It’s unfortunate – but at least there’s no permanent damage to Mark, he’s got the all-clear from medics.”

He added that the incident was “totally unprovoked”.

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“If someone is able to go out and do that and get away with it, will it happen again and if it does and someone gets paralysed and their career ended because of it, that’s maybe more the worrying thing about it,” he added.

“Whenever it’s clear and you have the evidence in front of you it’s disappointing nothing further can be done.

“I think it’s something the IRFU should look at – there may be exceptional circumstances to the rules. They should revisit it and maybe introduce a clause in exceptional circumstances.”

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