England captain Owen Farrell is set to find out on Tuesday if he will miss his side’s Rugby World Cup opener against Argentina after he was sent off in a warm-up match against Wales.
The fly-half’s shoulder-led challenge to the head of Taine Basham during England’s 19-17 win at Twickenham on Saturday was upgraded from a yellow card to red during the match itself by the recently-introduced ‘Bunker’ review system.
Farrell will now appear before a video disciplinary hearing on Tuesday that will determine the length of his suspension.
World Rugby’s mid-range sanction for a dangerous tackle is six games. And with the panel set to take into consideration Farrell’s three-match ban for the same offence in January, on top of five matches in 2020 and two in 2016, it would be extraordinary if the experienced 31-year-old received a lenient punishment.
England have two more warm-up games, against Ireland and Fiji.
Any suspension could also rule talisman Farrell out of the start of the World Cup, with Steve Borthwick’s team launching their campaign against Argentina — on paper their toughest first-round opponents — in Marseille on September 9.
But a combination of Saturday’s offence and Farrell’s previous record means the playmaker runs the risk of missing other matches in a Pool D also featuring Japan, Chile and Samoa.
Henry Arundell, Freddie Steward and Ellis Genge were also shown yellow cards against Wales at Twickenham, with 2019 World Cup finalists England reduced to 12 men at one stage.
Yet England managed to overcome a 17-9 deficit to snatch victory, with Farrell’s replacement, George Ford, the mastermind behind the hosts’ recovery.
“This win is going to be big for us,” Ford said.
“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, a close friend of Farrell since childhood, added England would rally round their skipper.
“Owen’s not a player who would intentionally want to do that,” he said. “We’ll get behind him, he’s our captain and our leader and he’ll be back.”
