John Dobson has confirmed that the Stormers will formally lodge an appeal against Adre Smith’s eight-week suspension on their return to South Africa after strengthening their case with expert witnesses.

Smith appeared before a disciplinary committee on Thursday after he was alleged to have bitten Munster hooker  Niall Scannell in the 46th minute of the match at Thomond Park over the weekend.

Although no evidence of any wrongdoing could be proven after referral to the TMO and video replays, the Stormers lock was found guilty and handed an eight-week suspension after he failed, on the balance of probabilities, to prove his innocence.

Addressing the media during a virtual press conference on Thursday, Dobson was confident that the appeal will be successful, especially since there appears to be no substantial evidence of Smith biting Scannell.

“We are launching an appeal,” Dobson confirmed. “There’s a condition that they need to meet for us… something we need to get around regarding the process of the appeal.

“Obviously we realised we had no chance of getting him available for this week … but our next game is on the 27th of November. We went out to get more expert witnesses who added to our case and support our view of his innocence. So, next week we’ll be formally lodging all the documents and starting the process.

“The more we’ve researched it and the more we examined the papers of their findings, the more convinced we are that this hasn’t been fairly dealt with. So, we will proceed with the appeal.”

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