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'I'm sure whoever is investigating it will see it as well': Leicester latest on subgate

(Photo by PA)

Leicester boss Steve Borthwick has given his latest take on last Saturday’s touchline bust-up with Pat Lam and his league-leading Bristol. The round 21 Gallagher Premiership tie ended in bizarre circumstances with a heated argument over the status of substituted Bears prop John Afoa that resulted in Borthwick confronting Lam on the sideline.

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After the play eventually restarted with Afoa in the Bristol front row for the contested clock-in-the-red scrum, a shunt by the Bears unsettled the Leicester ball and with the game ending after it was kicked to touch, a brawl broke out. The investigation into the players involved in that dust-up ended with no one getting into trouble as the citing officer didn’t feel anyone had committed a red card offence. 

However, there is still an ongoing investigation into what happened on the sideline minutes earlier and the bust-up that took place when referee Ian Tempest sought clarification on the status of Afoa, whom Lam had claimed was replaced injured but was written down as a tactical sub on the fourth official’s card.        

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Three days after the fiery exchanges, Borthwick held his weekly Leicester media briefing and he didn’t want to get into the matter beyond what was seen to unfold on Saturday. “I understand what you are asking me and as I said at the end of the game that I had no intention of talking about it,” he said.

It’s pretty clear what was being done, what was being said by people on the sideline. I am sure you have watched it, I’m sure you have heard it and I am sure whoever is investigating it will see it as well. I don’t really need to comment on it and I’ll just crack on with trying to coach well and trying to do things in what is deemed to be the right way.

“Ultimately that last scrum we didn’t scrum effectively enough so again it is another learning experience for us. They [Bristol] are an excellent team, a tremendously well-coached team packed full of star talent and when we gave them opportunities they took them in the game and they scored good tries, most of them from long range because they took their opportunities. We gave away too many opportunities and that shows where we are as a team right now.”

The argument on the touchline over whether Afoa was coming on or not caused upwards of a five-minute delay at a time when Leicester were winning repeated scrum penalties and had just seen Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro, Bristol’s replacement tighthead, sin-binned by the referee.

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Asked if the delay was a problem that cost Leicester the win as they were unable to exert the same dominance at the set-piece when that final delayed scrum was allowed to proceed, Borthwick added: “It was the same for both teams, wasn’t it? Both teams had to wait the same amount of time, both teams had the same opportunity to address what they needed to address to go into that. 

“I don’t see it as an issue. Nowadays you have breaks, you have TMO, there are different times when there are stoppages. Everyone here has watched rugby for a long time and accepts that so how you manage those periods is an important part of the performance. 

“We have moved on, we have a game on Saturday against Wasps that we are looking forward to and their scrum has been very good this season, this last part of the season. They are coached really well and have some formidable players in that front row. You start looking at Kieran Brookes, Biyi Alo, these are good players so our focus has been very much let’s look ahead to Wasps now.”

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Bull Shark 4 hours ago
Rassie Erasmus' Boks selection policy is becoming bizarre

To be fair, the only thing that drives engagement on this site is over the top critiques of Southern Hemisphere teams.


Or articles about people on podcasts criticizing southern hemisphere teams.


Articles regarding the Northern Hemisphere tend to be more positive than critical. I guess to also rile up kiwis and Saffers who seem to be the majority of followers in the comments section. There seems to be a whole department dedicated to Ireland’s world ranking news.


Despite being dialled into the Northern edition - I know sweet fokall about what’s going on in France.


And even less than fokall about what’s cutting in Japan - which has a fast growing, increasingly premium League competition emerging.


And let’s not talk about the pacific. Do they even play rugby Down there.


Oh and the Americas. I’ve read more articles about a young, stargazing Welshman’s foray into NFL than I have anything related to either the north and south continents of the Americas.


I will give credit that the women’s game is getting decent airtime. But for the rest and the above; it’s just pathetic coming from a World Rugby website.


Just consider the innovation emerging in Japan with the pedigree of coaches over there.


There’s so much good we could be reading.


Instead it’s unimaginative “critical for the sake of feigning controversial”. Which is lazy, because in order to pull that off all you need to be really good at is:


1. Being a doos;

2. Having an opinion.


No prior experience needed.


Which is not journalism. That’s like all or most of us in the comments section. People like Finn (who I believe is a RP contributor).


Anyway. Hopefully it will get better. The game is growing and the interest in the game is growing. Maybe it will attract more qualified journalists over time.

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