England have backed Tom Curry to keep his full focus on Friday night’s Rugby World Cup third-place play-off despite the rumbling Bongi Mbonambi affair.
Curry accused South Africa hooker Mbonambi of calling him a “white c***” in the Springboks’ last-gasp 16-15 semi-final victory in Paris on Saturday night.
World Rugby launched an investigation into the claim on Monday, leaving Mbonambi sweating on his place in Saturday’s final against New Zealand.
Sale flanker Curry asked referee Ben O’Keeffe, “Sir, if their hooker calls me a white c***, what do I do?” during the first half of England’s agonising Stade de France defeat.
O’Keeffe replied, “Nothing please,” then later added, “I’ll be on it.”
The exchange between Curry and O’Keeffe was caught on the referee's microphone, and has led to an official review.
Curry later confirmed an untoward incident and was visibly angry when being questioned about the issue, but refused to discuss the situation in any detail.
England are confident that Curry will be fully ready to feature in Friday’s bronze clash with Argentina though, with the Red Rose men determined to finish the tournament on a high.
“Tom is good, he’s obviously been thrown into it, but he’s a very, very impressive young man,” said attack coach Richard Wigglesworth.
“It will be dealt with by World Rugby. We get stuck into our prep for Argentina.
“The process is the process, and we have no knowledge of how long that will go on for or the outcome, but we have to get ready for Argentina.
“Every week there is always some sort of thing you could be distracted by.
“It’s international rugby, there’s a lot you could be distracted by. You want to be in situations where there are distractions.
“This distraction is different, but it’s still noise that isn’t about Friday night, our prep and our desire to finish in the right way.”
Ben Earl hailed Curry’s professionalism and focus, ahead of England’s final clash in this competition.
“Tom’s a brilliant team-mate, a brilliant friend of mine,” said Earl.
“He’s also an incredibly resilient guy. He gives his all for the team and I know he is going to be doing that this weekend. I hope it all gets resolved very quickly.”
