Frenchman Oscar Jegou has been handed a ban after gouging the eye of Scotland hooker Ewan Ashman in Saturday's Six Nations encounter. The Six Nations leaders suffered a 50-40 defeat against Scotland at Murrayfield, and will be without Jegou for this weekend's decider against England.

Video footage from the weekend's match showed Jegou sticking his finger into the face of Ashman, with the contact prolonged enough to warrant an investigation. At a disciplinary hearing on Wednesday, Jegou was given a four-week ban, which will in turn keep him out of the final Six Nations match, as well as several fixtures for La Rochelle in the Top 14 and Challenge Cup.

A statement from the Six Nations said: "In applying World Rugby's sanctioning provisions, the independent Disciplinary Committee determined that the low-end entry point of six weeks was appropriate in light of the fact that (among other reasons) there was no injury caused to the victim.

"In light of mitigating factors (including the player's good conduct and good disciplinary record), the independent Disciplinary Committee applied a two-week reduction in sanction, thus reducing the final sanction to four weeks. There were no aggravating factors to increase the sanction."

The incident left BBC pundit Nigel Owens gobsmacked, with the legendary referee saying: "It definitely should have been looked at. It doesn't look good, to be honest. Looking at that footage, that player is going to be in a bit of trouble.

"There will be a process in place now to deal with that, but it should have been looked at it in the game, because it is quite clear what the actions were.

"It was a great game of rugby and it didn't really matter in the context of the game, but on another day, in games where the score is tight, things like this are the ones where you really want the TMO to come in, for the clear and obvious."

When asked why TMO didn't flag the incident, he responded: "I don't understand. The TMO would have all this footage, probably more than what we are seeing here. When you look at that, you've got to bring it to the referee's attention.

"A Scottish player went over and did say to the referee that something had happened here and they needed to have a look at that. I think the referee said there was a process in place and they would look at it after in the citing process.

"But I think when you have clear footage like that, that's what you want the TMO to come in for. For the clear and obvious, you want to pick those things up. It's disappointing that it wasn't picked up."