LONDON - Ireland great Brian O'Driscoll has been given a three-week ban for stamping on Italy's Simone Favaro.
As a result, the 34-year-old ex-Ireland captain is now set to miss Leinster's European Challenge Cup quarter-final against English club Wasps on April 5.
However, the veteran centre, who was suspended by a disciplinary hearing in London until April 8, does have the right of appeal.
The hearing said O'Driscoll's offence was in the mid-range, five-week, level of seriousness but added they were deducting two weeks from that punishment on account of his previously "exemplary" record.
O'Driscoll was sent to the sin-bin for only the second time in his career by referee Wayne Barnes after he was spotted stamping on the chest of flanker Favaro during a 22-15 defeat by Italy in Rome last weekend which rounded off a poor Six Nations campaign for Ireland. If, as has been speculated, it was O'Driscoll's 125th and final match for Ireland before retirement, which could be preceded by his selection for a fourth British and Irish Lions tour.