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Borthwick talks Owen Farrell appeal, hits out at personal abuse
By Liam Heagney
England boss Steve Borthwick has spoken for the first time about the outcome of the Owen Farrell independent disciplinary hearing. His English team captain was cleared on Tuesday to continue playing with immediate effect after his red card last Saturday versus Wales in the Summer Nations Series was rescinded and downgraded to yellow.
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However, it has now emerged that World Rugby have appealed the decision of the independent judicial committee and the matter will be revisited next week.
In the meantime, Borthwick took the decision to exclude Farrell from his match day 23 for this weekend’s game versus Ireland, citing the amount of training time that his player lost on Monday and Tuesday as the reason.
Having since confirmed an England team that shows six changes from last weekend in London, Borthwick has now addressed the media about the ongoing Farrell situation after flying into Dublin with his team on Thursday evening.
Speaking at the Conrad Hotel located a seven-minute walk away from World Rugby HQ on Dublin’s southside, he said: “Regarding the ongoing disciplinary matter with Owen Farrell, unfortunately given the disruption to his week, the intrusion in terms of his preparation, I made the decision to pull him out of the team that he would have otherwise led this weekend.
“The situation is one I find really disappointing. We thought we had reached a conclusion in this matter on Tuesday. It had an impact in terms of the disruption for this week, now it is going to be ongoing into next Test week (versus Fiji at Twickenham on August 26).
“The situation with the England team and Owen, in particular, seems to be amplified. The commentary around it seems to move from an issue around the tackle to personal attacks on the character of the man. It’s just wrong.
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“Owen has handed himself through this process in a really respectful manner. We respect the process and thought we had reached the conclusion of it. We will continue to respect the process and the decision that is reached.
“Owen was due to play in this game on Saturday, We are very fortunate to have other leaders such as Courtney who has led the team before and will lead the team on Saturday.
“Owen was due to play bit having such a disrupted preparation, missing elements of Monday, missing all of Tuesday’s training many I had to take him from the 23.”
Asked why Farrell has been the subject of personal attacks, Borthwick continued: “You would have to ask the people who are writing the commentary around this. I think this move from a tackle in a split-second decision to commentary around his personal character is wrong.
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“He is a teammate, he is a member of our squad, he is the captain of our squad and we all feel for him, we all feel when one of our group is on the receiving end of such personal attacks, we all feel it. Owen has conducted himself brilliantly throughout the week.
“It is going into next week. The final two Test weeks of our Rugby World Cup preparations have been disrupted by this matter. We respected the process fully, one of the most senior and experienced panels that deals with these matters dealt with it on Tuesday, went through a full hearing procedure and came to an answer that we thought was a conclusion.
“Now the situation is that another panel is being convened to try and find some holes in what was done on Tuesday. What are we going to do? Conduct ourselves in a manner that respects the process and we will continue to do that.”
Stop bleating & teach him how to tackle Steve, teach him how to tackle, man. Even a yellow is not good. And stop crybabying about the extended disruption, an appeal is part of the process. All bloody avoidable if you taught this guy to tackle!!!
Players are responsible for the outcome of a tackle, not just the intended outcome. If your technique is to drive your shoulder into the upper chest then every now and then the result will be a red card, because there will be unpredictable last second movements.
The answer is not Tackle School. Tackle School is a stupid sham that pretends the problem is about players not knowing how to tackle safely. Of course Farrell knows how to tackle safely. The problem is that tackling safely is not as effective. He, and others, are intentionally tackling more dangerously, because the upside outweighs the downside.
So the answer is to create a bigger downside. And one good way to do that is to impose heavy sanctions when their high risk tackles result in head contact.
Unfortunately the track record in this case is that there are all sorts of BS arguments about mitigation and special context. So we minimize the penalty and tacitly endorse the behavior, to the long term detriment of the game.
And BTW SCW is wrong when he says there are no winners in this situation. Impose the ban for the sake of rugby integrity. The winners are the fans, players and stakeholders of the future.
How long has been playing rugby? Most people will respond to being reprimanded once, twice or maybe three times. This guy feels untouchable (by virtue of World Rugby and RFU’s failure to make meaningful decisions). On the other hand, they seem to be extremely decisive (some would say harsh) when it comes to second-tier nations and in particular Pacific Island (‘those bloody savages) teams. Just smacks of being racist and colonialist and is an absolute farce. The message is get your union to afford a top lawyer and he will get you out of decapitating someone. Funny not much has been said about Basham and how he’s fared in all of this. Owen is a recividist offender and has been able to get away with it.
The lack of consistency regarding the policy is the issue.
Farrell has numerous videos online of repeated no arms, shoulder charges that Polynesian players are handed lengthy bans for.
Players like Sonny-Bill Williams, Scott Barrett were sanctioned over this technique, but he continues to not wrap and commit shoulder contact on the head.
The mitigation was flimsy at best, he went in upright, not bent at the hips, and there was nowhere other than upper body or head he was going to make contact with.
He’s been treated differently because of the racial bias of the RFU panel.
Case in point the handling of Angus Ta'avao Gm 2 vs Andrew Porter Gm 3 in the Ab vs Irish series last year. Ta'avao Significant change of direction still banned, Porter set himself and piked Retallick in the cheek with his head quite deliberately and wasn’t red carded. RFU hypocrisy at its finest.
Personal attacks are out of order but this guy has a history and needs to be punished. Often these kinds of attacks happen because people are frustrated that someone seems to just get away with something. It's not right but it's human nature. If he wanted to avoid the personal attacks they and he should fess up, change his method, take his punishment and they will stop. Everything else is just an excuse or an attempt to redirect from the issue.
The people in charge of the disciplinary decision of Farrell should be remove immediately. This was a decision made out of corruption because nobody can be that incompetent. All of the people involved in undermining the upcoming Rugby World Cup should be sacked. As for personal attacks on Farrell I haven't seen any other than most rugby fans calling him a thug on the field of play which he is, he's committed this type of offence multiple times and got away with it while also picking up 3 red cards for similar tackles so the man has a history of really dangerous tackles. To see his celebration when he got away with serious dangerous play against South Africa, feigning injury while on the ground and looking under his arm at the player he'd just injured shows you the measure of the man. Shoulder boy is a thug and should be thrown out of the game. Instead of Brothwick pissing and moaning about how the England squads preparations have been affected and upset by the clamour of all the coverage of his thuggish captain he should probably shut up and tell Farrell to behave himself and send shoulder boy to tackle class because the man can't do either. I was pleased to see that World Rugby have stepped in to address this disastrous decision made by Six Nations Rugby and I hope he gets the maximum sanction and so bring some much needed respite to the game we all love so dearly.
The personal attacks are completely unnecessary and should be directed at six nations and world rugby for making an absolute mockery of the whole process. That is not Owen Farrell’s fault and should be clear.
However, what is Owen Farrell’s fault is his repeated tackling infringements which he seems either to not be able to do anything about or unwilling. He’s unwillingness to take it seriously on and off the pitch leaves himself open for personal attacks. He can’t claim humility in dealing with it. That time is passed. I reject the claim that he has handled it respectfully. Respect isn’t shown with a lawyer holding your hand in front of a panel that decides your fate. Respect is shown on the pitch by showing his teammates and opposition that he takes them all seriously by improving the way he tackles. He talks a good game, now he must show it.
I agree the conversation should stay analytical as apposed to personal, but even a completely unemotional analytical conversation leaves many questions that Owen Farrell must personally answer for…
The personal attacks have been appalling.
However the decision made by the judiciary appears very wrong in the face of what WR is trying to achieve in regard to player welfare.
If the appeal results in the same outcome as that of the judiciary, then let's move on and give the man his team back.
I think we should all be focussing on Eddie Jones right now anyway. He's standing up as the clown of the tournament already and it hasn't even started yet!