A furious Steve Borthwick lambasted the Owen Farrell disciplinary saga, bemoaning the fact his England captain now has to wait until next week to discover his Rugby World Cup fate.
Farrell was sent off for a head-high tackle on Taine Basham in England’s 19-17 win over Wales at Twickenham on Saturday.
The 31-year-old then saw his red card rescinded by a three-strong Australian independent disciplinary panel on Tuesday.
England and Farrell breathed a sigh of relief as their captain and talisman would be free to start the World Cup unimpeded. But then today World Rugby took the unusual step of appealing the decision, forcing summer internationals organisers the Six Nations to convene a new hearing.
The appeal will not be held until next week, leaving Farrell’s preparations for two Test matches thrown into disarray – and his World Cup availability back under threat.
England boss Borthwick opted to stand Farrell down from Saturday’s warm-up Test against Ireland in Dublin, even though the Saracens stalwart was free to feature.
The Red Rose men will host Fiji at Twickenham on Saturday week, and Borthwick has now hit out at the fact Farrell’s preparations for that match will now also be adversely affected.
“Unfortunately given the disruption and the intrusion in terms of his preparation, I made a decision to pull Owen out of the team that he would otherwise have led this weekend,” said Borthwick.
“The situation is one I find really disappointing. We thought we had reached a conclusion to this matter on Tuesday. Now it’s going to be ongoing into the next Test week.
“These are the final two weeks, the final two Test weeks of our Rugby World Cup preparation, that are going to be disrupted by this matter.
“We respected the process fully, we had one of the most senior panels available to deal with this on Tuesday. Now the situation is that another panel is being convened to try and find some holes in what was done on Tuesday. We are going to respect the process again.”
Farrell’s stand-up tackle technique has come under intense scrutiny this week, and World Rugby are likely to argue in their appeal that the challenge on Basham was never legal therefore warranted no mitigation.
England argued that Jamie George pushed Basham at the last second, leaving Farrell unable to adjust. If the appeal deems Farrell’s challenge in effect a shoulder barge, he will be facing a ban that will put him out of the start of the World Cup.
Borthwick believes Farrell has the resilience to cope with whatever will be thrown at him, but the England boss is unhappy with criticism that has strayed into personal territory.
“The situation with the England team and Owen in particular seems to be amplified,” said Borthwick.
“The commentary around it seems to have moved from an issue around the tackle to personal attacks around the character of the man which is just wrong.
“I think Owen has handled himself in a really respectful manner.”
