Argentina fly-half Tomás Albornoz has been suspended for four matches after admitting misconduct towards match officials following his side's Nations Championship defeat to England last month.
World Rugby's disciplinary committee announced the sanction on 5 August, ruling that Albornoz's conduct towards referee Angus Gardner after the 31-24 loss in Santiago del Estero on 18 July amounted to intimidation. The 24-year-old accepted the misconduct allegations and conceded that his behaviour, taken as a whole, was intimidatory, while maintaining that it was not abusive, insulting, offensive or threatening — a distinction accepted by both the governing body and the committee.
The flashpoint came at the end of a fractious contest, when Argentina were denied a last-gasp try that would have given Albornoz a conversion attempt to level the match, after Gardner and television match official Brett Cronan spent a lengthy period reviewing the score. The committee heard that Albornoz approached the Australian official on two separate occasions after the final whistle and had to be restrained by team-mates, with contact made while disputing the decision.