Owen Farrell will be taught on Tuesday if he’s to overlook England’s crucial World Cup opener in opposition to Argentina after he was despatched off for a harmful sort out in opposition to Wales.
Farrell’s shoulder-led problem to the pinnacle of Taine Basham in Saturday’s 19-17 victory at Twickenham was upgraded from a yellow card to pink by the ‘Bunker’ assessment system.
England’s captain should now seem earlier than a video disciplinary listening to that begins on Tuesday morning to search out out the size of his suspension.
The mid-range sanction for a harmful sort out is six video games and given he acquired a three-match ban for a similar offence in January, on prime of 5 matches in 2020 and two in 2016, it’s uncertain he might be handled leniently by the disciplinary course of.
Fixtures in opposition to Ireland and Fiji full England’s warm-up schedule for the World Cup earlier than their group marketing campaign is launched with a pivotal group conflict with Argentina in Marseille on September 9.
Steve Borthwick now faces the probably prospect of being with out his skipper and talisman for the hardest opponents in Pool D, whereas his participation in opposition to Japan, Chile and Samoa are additionally in query.
Henry Arundell, Freddie Steward and Ellis Genge had been proven yellow playing cards too and at one level England had been diminished to 12 males, though that merely impressed an audacious comeback expertly directed by Farrell’s alternative George Ford.
Courtney Lawes, the frontrunner to develop into captain if Farrell is unavailable, admits that regardless of an escape act that confirmed exceptional resilience, the disciplinary implosion have to be addressed.
“There aren’t many teams who would win that game, so we can take a lot of positives from it,” Lawes stated.
“At the same time it’s not good enough going down to 12 men. If we keep putting ourselves in situations like that, we’re not likely to do as well as we did.
“We’ve got a lot to learn but it’s great to show everyone our strength in character so early and it gives us confidence to push on and get things right so that the next time we’re out there we get one step better.
“Sometimes you’ve got to find a way to win and we certainly did that against Wales. We will do our very best to take it forward and keep on improving.”
Farrell’s looming absence justifies Borthwick’s choice to choose three fly-halves in his World Cup squad and it was Ford who took centre stage in an unlikely comeback, his match-winning penalty just one factor of a masterclass in sport administration.
“This win is going to be big for us. You can’t put a value on stuff like that,” Ford stated.
“However you train and whatever scenarios you train, it’s not like it is in the heat of the moment when you have three men in the sin-bin, are points down and under the sticks.
“You can never replicate that and this gives us unbelievable belief, a real solid platform to know what we can do.
“Traditional English rugby is set-piece orientated, so getting on top there to be able to play the game we want to play and we’ll take some real belief from that.”
Ford insists England, who’re sweating on the health of ankle-injury sufferer Jack van Poortvliet, will rally round Farrell.
“Owen’s not a player who would intentionally want to do that. We’ll get behind him, he’s our captain and our leader and he’ll be back,” Ford stated.