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'This Ellis Genge dude needs to be dealt with' - The Beast and Conor McGregor's coach take issue with England prop
By Ian Cameron
Iconic Springbok loosehead legend Tendai Mtawarira has suggested that combative England front-rower Ellis Genge needs to be ‘dealt with’ after landing a number of forearm cheap-shots into Ireland flyhalf Jonathan Sexton on Saturday.
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Genge avoided a citing for the incident that was picked up by referee Mathieu Raynal during the game and later by the media in the aftermath. Sexton, who appeared to be holding Genge into the ruck, could be heard in the audio to ask Raynal: ‘Sir, he elbowed me in the face’ to which Genge replied ‘Yeah I did. I did,’ as the pair retreated back to their teams.
The consensus was that Genge would be cited today, but the deadline came and went at lunchtime, with just Ireland centre Bundee Aki and France lock Paul Willemse facing further sanction for their respective red cards over the weekend.
World Cup winner Mtawarira, who is now playing in the MLR with Old Glory, wasn’t impressed. The 117 Test cap prop said on Twitter: “This Ellis Genge dude needs to be dealt with properly…”
This Ellis Genge dude needs to be dealt with ??properly.. https://t.co/1JC9KelO7N
— Tendai Mtawarira (@Beast_TM) March 22, 2021
Speaking loosehead to loosehead, one can only imagine the words of one of rugby’s favourite sons would have found their way back to Genge and they did.
I’ll let him know https://t.co/mAPeEDOo63
— Gengey (@EllisGenge) March 22, 2021
And he wasn’t the only one to take issue, even if some of the social media exchanges were very definitely in the light-hearted category. The coach of MMA star Conor McGregor – John Kavanagh – offered to give the Irish team a BJJ training session on how to escape an ‘amateur pin’ like the one Genge deployed.
“Bring me in for an afternoon Irish Rugby and I’ll have Sexton and the lads escaping amateur pins like this in the blink of an eye. If any of them can hold me down the lesson is free,” joked Kavanagh.
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Bring me in for an afternoon @IrishRugby and I'll have Sexton and the lads escaping amateur pins like this in the blink of an eye. If any of them can hold me down the lesson is free ??? https://t.co/699SrOiaQa
— Coach JK (@John_Kavanagh) March 21, 2021
Genge did reply to this via a Retweet from RugbyPass’ own Jim Hamilton, who observed “Ellis Genge you might be in bother. Although Conor struggles on his back also. I’m just saying…’. The Leicester Tiger responded by simply saying ‘Line em up.’
Line em up
— Gengey (@EllisGenge) March 21, 2021
Ellis Genge and Twitter – a match made in heaven.
