Joe Marler will discover on Monday if he faces punishment for grabbing Alun Wyn Jones’s genitals during England’s Six Nations victory over Wales. Eddie Jones could also find himself in hot water for his stinging criticism of the referee, Ben O’Keeffe, over Manu Tuilagi’s red card.
The citing commissioner, Peter Ferguson, has until evening to bring disciplinary action against Marler. Already Tuilagi must appear before a disciplinary hearing, most likely on Tuesday, for his dangerous tackle on George North while Courtney Lawes may face a sanction for a second-half tackle on Jones.
The Wales captain called on World Rugby to act after the bizarre incident with Marler during the first half of England’s 33-30 victory but the governing body considers it a matter for the Six Nations. It is understood Ferguson took the unusual step of going into the visitors’ changing room after the match and spoke with Jones and the Wales coaches, suggesting a citing is likely.
After the match Jones said: “I’ve got 138 Tests for my country. If I react, I get a red card. It’s tough, isn’t it? Hopefully World Rugby have a look at it. Joe’s a good bloke, lots of things happen on a rugby field. It’s difficult as a captain these days because you can’t speak to a ref about anything, it feels. There’s a lot of footage that has been shown, it seems like a lot of supporters saw what happened. It’s very frustrating that we talk a lot about TMOs and footage reviews, yet there doesn’t seem to be a lot of it happening.”
Marler perhaps hinted at his opinion of the matter on Sunday, tweeting: “Bollocks. Complete bollocks.”
Punishment for “grabbing, twisting or squeezing” the genitals starts with a suspension of 12 weeks and, given Marler’s rap sheet, he could be facing a lengthy ban. Previous examples of similar incidents are rare but the London Irish second-row George Robson was banned for six weeks for grabbing an opponent’s testicles in 2016.
Andy Goode
(@AndyGoode10)People think it’s funny but the values our game has been built around aren’t in great shape at the minute! pic.twitter.com/eBx5WxAwm1
Saturday’s incident was caught on camera and quickly went viral during the match and, in his role as a TV pundit for ITV, the former Wales international Gareth Thomas, who came out in 2009, joked: “It would never have happened in my day and I’m really upset about that – because if it had I would have never retired!”
On Sunday Thomas apologised for the remark, tweeting: “To the very small minority of people who were offended by my comment yesterday I apologise. I tried to find humour in a situation – that doesn’t mean I condone it, it means I wanted it to not be an issue. So don’t change the narrative to justify how you feel. Be kind.”
Eddie Jones could face a fine or stadium ban if found to have brought the game into disrepute with his comments about O’Keeffe. The head coach called the decision to send off Tuilagi “absolute rubbish” as his side were reduced to 13 men with Ellis Genge already in the sin-bin. Jones added: “At the end we were 13 against 16 and that’s hard. When you have got a three-man advantage, you are going to do some damage. That’s what happened. We had a numerical disadvantage.”
Tuilagi was said to have “no qualms” with the sending-off after making contact with North’s head with his shoulder but Jones was adamant O’Keefe’s decision “lackedcommon sense”.
“No one wants to see someone’s head get hit,” he said. “But when a player is legally chop-tackled and is falling to the ground and he is about to score a try, you’ve got to make an attempt to put him into touch. That’s what Manu did and I just think it lacks common sense.”