The Reds' Quade Cooper tackles the Waratahs' Berrick Barnes during their clash in Brisbane © PA Photos

Enlarge

Related Links

Features: Flawed but fascinating

News: Race for Super Rugby glory hots up

Tournaments/Tours: Super Rugby

Teams: Australia | New Zealand | South Africa

The Reds will not appeal Quade Cooper's recent one-match suspension for a dangerous tackle on the Waratahs' Berrick Barnes and as a result he will definitely miss this weekend's Super Rugby qualifier clash with the Sharks in Brisbane.

Cooper revealed the defending champions' decision via his Twitter account, writing: "I won't be appealing the 1 match suspension as I don't want to be a distraction to the teams prep."

The Wallabies international was sin-binned in the second half of his side's 32-16 win for the challenge on his Wallabies team-mate and referee Steve Walsh also chose to refer the incident to the citing commissioner by issuing a white card.

Upon further review of the match footage, the citing commissioner deemed the incident had "met the red card threshold for foul play" and Cooper was called to the judiciary on Monday where he was handed his one-week sanction.

The Reds were "seriously considering" an appeal in the hope their first-choice playmaker would be available for Saturday's Suncorp Stadium clash but it now looks that duty will be handed to Ben Lucas.

QRU chairman Jim Carmichael said after reading both the transcript and written judgement it still firmly believed it had a strong case but time was against them. "We initially anticipated we would gain a better understanding of the decision by the Judicial Officer though obtaining the full SANZAR transcripts," he said in a statement.

"However, they failed to reveal any further detail or clarification on why the judgement was made and the delay in receiving these documents has made it near impossible to mount an appeal.

"After fully considering the SANZAR transcript received at midday today, QRU still firmly believes that the tackle in question did not reach the red card threshold at which Cooper was initially cited and therefore did not warrant any further action than the yellow card which was awarded by referee Steve Walsh at the time,'' the QRU statement said.

"Also, evidence presented to the video conference over a four-and-a-half hour period, failed to validate the citing commissioners claim that Coopers tackle initially made contact with Barnes head, in QRUs opinion."