The Leinster flanker Shane Jennings is facing a long lay-off from the game after being cited for allegedly making contact with the eye area of the London Irish second-row Nick Kennedy during the Heineken Cup tie between the sides in Dublin.

No date for the hearing has yet been set by European Rugby Cup but it will be the first major disciplinary hearing of the campaign for an offence that hit the headlines in the summer when the South Africa flanker Schalk Burger was banned for eight weeks for making contact with the eye of the Lions wing Luke Fitzgerald. The tourists were incensed at what they saw as a lenient sentence and the International Rugby Board launched an investigation into the way sanctions were applied throughout the rugby world.

The board sent a memo to all judicial officers in July detailing what it expected after guilty verdicts reached against players accused of eye-gouging, describing the act as heinous. The IRB said it would consider giving itself the right to appeal in cases where it felt the punishment was too light.

That issue will be discussed tomorrow by the IRB's regulatory committee, which meets in Dublin. It will also debate whether the sanctions for offences such as gouging should be increased and will look at a shake-up of the disciplinary system governing international matches to ensure greater consistency in punishments.

Nothing will come into force until the IRB's council meets at the end of the year but if Jennings is found guilty he can expect a more severe ban than the eight weeks handed out to Burger and the Italy No8 Sergio Parisse for eye contact offences in the summer.

The England lock Kennedy was furious after the alleged incident last Friday and a fight broke out which resulted in a forward from each side sent to the sin-bin. The London Irish captain, Bob Casey, said the day after the game: "I spoke to Nick after the match about the incident with Shane Jennings and he admitted he overreacted."

The Munster prop John Hayes will tomorrow have an appeal hearing in Dublin after last week receiving a six‑week ban, or four matches, for stamping on Cian Healy during the defeat to Leinster this month.

The Bath flanker Andy Beattie faces a ban of between four and six weeks after being sent off at the end of the Heineken Cup defeat to Ulster in Belfast last Friday for dangerous use of the boot. His head coach at Bath, Steve Meehan has signed a two-year contract extension that will keep him at the Recreation Ground until 2012.

Steve Borthwick has said he has spoken "briefly" to Olivier Azam, who received a 12-week ban for inflicting the eye injury that has kept the England captain out of action since the end of September, but said he could not comment further ahead of the Gloucester player's appeal.

"It's a pretty nervous time when your eye has swollen shut and you can't see anything. I'd taken a bang so it was a very numb area, so I couldn't feel much either," said Borthwick, who will return this week. "I was very alarmed. But the care I was given was sensational and I was told as early as possible that every^­ thing was OK."

Bath have made a slow start to the campaign after a summer of turmoil with one win in their first six matches but the club's chief executive, Nick Blofeld, said: "I think we have the squad, coaches and support team to be regularly finishing in the top four of the Guinness Premiership and challenging for major honours, domestically and on the European stage, over the next few years."The rugby players' union is changing its name from the Professional Rugby Players' Association to the Rugby Players' Association, and its chief executive, Damian Hopley, said it would embark on a drive to expand its membership beyond the professional game.

As well as including semi-professional players from the Championship, former players and the elite women's game, Hopley said it would approach the Rugby Football Union and Premier Rugby to agree a new deal for "long-term, unconditional funding linked to the growth of the game". The PRA, which receives around £700,000 from the two bodies and raises a further £900,000 itself through sponsorship and benefits, is seeking a percentage of overall income raised through commercial deals and TV rights.

Hopley said the controversies that had engulfed Harlequins and Bath this summer had proved the need for a "vibrant" players' union. "For a fraction of that overall income, the overall reputational risk we would be protecting is phenomenal. We want to lock down a long-term funding proposal so we're not constantly going back to the well for more money."