Rugby star Flanagan gets 10-game ban for ‘testicle attack’

Bradford Bulls hooker George Flanagan has been suspended for 10 matches and fined 250 pounds after being found guilty of “attacking an opponent’s testicles” for the second time in 18 months, the Rugby Football League said.

The incident occurred in the 32nd minute of the Bulls’ Challenge Cup second-round loss to Featherstone Rovers on March 21. Flanagan, who was handed an eight-match ban for a similar offence in August 2019, pleaded not guilty to the charge.

A Grade F charge is the most serious grading open to the Rugby Football League’s match review panel and carries a minimum suspension of eight matches.

Rugby league has had a number of unsavoury on-field incidents over the years.

Sam Burgess, who represented England in both rugby league and union and played in Australia’s National Rugby League, was banned for two weeks for a “squirrel tackle” in which he grabbed the testicles of opponent Will Chambers during a match in 2013.

Former NRL player John Hopoate was banned in 2001 and sacked by his club for inserting his fingers into an opposing player’s anus on more than one occasion.