Cited Healey facing Six Nations ban

Austin Healey may miss England's opening Six Nations games against Scotland and Ireland next month after being cited yesterday for kicking the Sale wing Anthony Elliott during last week's Zurich Premiership game at Welford Road.

Video evidence suggests the Leicester back caught Elliott with a deliberate scything right-foot kick as they sprinted after a loose ball in the second half of the Tigers' 33-10 win. Under International Board guidelines such an offence warrants a ban of 42 days, and Healey could not have chosen a worse week to be summoned before a Rugby Football Union disciplinary tribunal.

The three-man RFU panel will already have dealt with four international players - Gloucester's Olivier Azam, Newcastle's Epi Taione, Sale's Alex Sanderson and Northampton's Mattie Stewart - by the time Healey's case is heard on Thursday, and his past disciplinary record is not exactly spotless. The last time he fell foul of Twickenham was in 1999 when a three-week club ban for stamping on London Irish's Kevin Putt was increased to eight weeks by an RFU tribunal.

In September he was fined £2,500 plus costs for comments made in his Guardian column on the eve of the third Lions Test in Sydney, although yesterday Twickenham opted to take no action over Healey's post-tour book after a complaint by the Welsh Rugby Union about unflattering comments directed at its coach Graham Henry.

The RFU's disciplinary officer Robert Horner issued a carefully worded statement stressing his union wished "to apologise to the WRU if any offence was caused by the book", which contained a indirect reference to Henry as "that Kiwi runt". But the statement added that the RFU could not find "sufficient evidence which was directly attributable to Austin Healey to take the matter further".

Leicester say Healey "has been made aware of Leicester Tigers' view on the matter and what is expected of him in the future". To judge by his latest misdemeanour the club's warning appears to have fallen on deaf ears, but the 42-cap player is entitled to raise a quizzical eyebrow about the consistency of the RFU's new independent citing procedures.

The move to cite Healey came only after the Elliott incident was highlighted on Sky Sport's weekly magazine programme The Rugby Club on Thursday evening, raising the question as to why the match citing officer Johnny Johnson, more concerned with summoning Sanderson to answer charges of spitting, failed to report it initially.

Leicester's team manager Dean Richards was saying little last night - "Having examined the video evidence, it would probably be best to leave any comment until after the hearing next Thursday" - but Healey faces an anxious few days.