England captain Owen Farrell, whose red card received against Wales was confirmed on appeal Tuesday evening by the organizing committee of the summer test matches, will therefore miss the first two meetings of the 2023 World Cup of the XV of the Rose, facing Argentina and Japan. The opener of the XV de la Rose was excluded on August 12 during the victory against Wales (19-17) after a dangerous tackle on the third line Taine Basham.
On August 15, the Disciplinary Committee of the Organizing Committee of the “Summer Nations Series”, preparation meetings for the World Cup in France (September 8 – October 28), canceled the red card received by the English opener for which he faced up to six weeks of suspension.
The decision to exclude him had been taken by the “bunker”, a referee having the possibility of reviewing the images from an isolated place during the meeting. A committee, made up of Australian officials, had challenged this exclusion and announced that the player was “free to play again immediately”.
This decision provoked an outcry from many rugby players, including several players from the Pacific Islands, such as the Tongan center of Toulouse Pita Ahki or the former Samoan international Daniel Leo. Two days later, World Rugby, the governing body of world rugby, announced that it was appealing this non-suspension.
The Appeal Committee, meeting on Tuesday, “decided unanimously that during the first instance hearing, the Disciplinary Committee should have taken into account the player’s attempt to wrap his opponent in the tackle: but this point did not appear in the initial decision”, explains a press release. “Following the review of this key element by the Appeals Committee, it was determined that the referee was correct in making the decision to show Farrell a red card,” the statement added.
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For the appeal committee, “the decision of the (first) disciplinary committee to downgrade the red card to a yellow card was manifestly wrong”. Given the player’s acceptance of his fault, the sanction was reduced to four matches.
Owen Farrell did not participate in the defeat of England in Ireland on Saturday (29-10) in Dublin, equivalent to a first suspension match, he will therefore miss the next three matches of the XV of the Rose: Saturday against Fiji at Twickenham, September 9 against Argentina in Marseille and September 17 against Japan in Nice, the latter two counting for Pool D of the World Cup-2023.
