For someone who claims not to discuss refereeing decisions, England head coach Steve Borthwick has spent a good part of this Championship doing precisely that.
The nine yellow cards accumulated by England equals a record previously set by Italy in 2002 while their 55 penalties conceded was also a tournament high. Ellis Genge’s yellow card in the 48-46 defeat by France perfectly illustrates the cost of such rank indiscipline, directly costing England 21 points through a penalty try and then two further tries while the prop was in the sin-bin.
Yet England’s real anger was centred around the officiating in the build-up to Louis Bielle-Biarrey’s fourth try – and with some justification. The incident came in the 65th minute with England leading 39-38. As Jack van Poortvliet plays the ball out from the scrum, France flanker François Cros clearly slaps the ball down. Referee Nika Amashukeli immediately calls out penalty advantage for deliberate knock on.
After a couple of phases, the television match official Brett Cronan informed Amashukeli that the knock-on was accidental and the Georgian announced, “Ok, not deliberate, just a knock-on,” just as Fin Smith put a grubber through which Thomas Ramos collected. Spotting the space, Antoine Dupont puts a brilliant kick through for Bielle-Biarrey to race ahead and score an incredible ninth try of the Championship.
Regardless of whether the TMO should have intervened for a situation that was far from clear and obvious, England’s main frustration was that they were deliberately taking a risk because they thought they had penalty advantage. “I think that World Rugby needs to look at that kind of situation,” Borthwick said. “You can’t have the players playing with certain knowledge and then it taken away from them.”
Scrum-half Van Poortvliet provided a player’s perspective on the event. “I think it was Ollivon (it was Cros) that came out the scrum, or I actually don’t know which player it was, but I firstly thought he might be offside, and then I thought it was a slap down,” Van Poortvliet said.
“So to be fair, to start with, I thought it was a knock-on. And Maro was communicating with him on the floor, saying we’ll take the scrum. And then he said – well, I was under the impression, and there was a few of us under the impression, he said penalty advantage. So look, when you’ve got a penalty advantage, you got a free shot almost. I shouted it out loud, pen advantage. And Fin saw space in behind, and that bounces up one bounce earlier, and Ben Earl is running through anyway.
“But yeah, we were under the impression we could chance our arm to then have a penalty advantage. And then there’s the confusion of why we didn’t get it. You’re in a confused state, and then they boot it in behind and you’re trying to stop a try. But yeah, we were all under the impression we had a penalty advantage. And like, ultimately, if we had a scrum advantage, it would have affected… we probably wouldn’t have played that play like that.
“You get a pen advantage, like I said, you chance your arm and put in those chips in behind, or like those 50-50s. But if it’s just scrum advantage, you know you lose it after a kick. So we wouldn’t have done that.”
Borthwick also took issue with that decision by Amashukeli to sin-bin Genge for collapsing a maul, although several informed pundits disagreed. “I thought that one against Ellis to give a penalty try – I don’t follow it,” Borthwick said. “I’ll ask for it to be explained to me.”
It was Amashukeli too who had attracted Borthwick’s ire for showing the first of two yellow cards to winger Henry Arundell in the 31-20 loss to Scotland at Murrayfield. Amashukeli sin-binned Arundell for not releasing Rory Darge before attempting to win the ball. Borthwick would later imply that the clarification he received from World Rugby indicated that Amashukeli had made the wrong decision.
As a result of that sin-binning when Arundell later took out Kyle Rowe in the air – a clear-cut yellow card – his resulting 20-minute red card meant England played 30 minutes of the game with 14 men during which time they conceded 21 points.
With both Genge and Arundell’s yellow cards, England got unlucky but they were still debatable decisions, liable to be swung by a partisan home crowd. Naturally, referees will also be influenced by teams with bad disciplinary records. England may play in white but they are no angels and their reputation is now preceding them. For every yellow card they can argue was harsh, there are at least two which are fully justified whether Maro Itoje’s brainless slapdown in Rome or immediately conceding a penalty when England were on a team warning against Wales.
Amashukeli rescinding a penalty advantage without England’s knowledge is a clear error but so was Ollie Chessum’s run towards the corner flag rather than the posts or Henry Pollock’s decision to throw a loose pass towards Cadan Murley in the final minute. Long before Borthwick starts demanding perfection of the officials, he needs to look at his own team’s failings first.
Borthwick demands explanation on ‘confusing’ calls
Borthwick will seek clarification from World Rugby about Ellis Genge’s “very debatable” yellow card as France snatched the Six Nations title at the death via Thomas Ramos’ injury-time penalty.
In an astonishing climax to perhaps the greatest ever Six Nations tournament, Tommy Freeman’s converted try three minutes from time gave England the lead for the third time in Paris.
However, Ollie Chessum was penalised for a high tackle allowing Ramos to kick a penalty for a 48-46 win which took the title from Ireland, who would have won with a French defeat.
Yet perhaps the most crucial period of the game came just before half-time when referee Nika Amashukeli ruled that Genge had deliberately collapsed a maul, sin-binning the prop as well as awarding a penalty try. France scored two further converted tries at the start of the second half while Genge remained in the sin-bin. England have conceded nine yellow cards in this year’s Six Nations, equalling an unwanted record set by Italy in 2002.
Borthwick was also incensed by the build-up to Louis Bielle-Biarrey’s fourth try. Amashukeli awarded an on-field penalty advantage to England which was overruled by the television match official and downgraded to an accidental knock-on, resulting in England turning over for the winger to kick ahead and score.
“I think there’s a few decisions in there,” Borthwick said. “I’ll be clear – our discipline needs to be better. You need to keep 15 men on the pitch. The teams are so good that when you do drop numbers, it makes life very, very hard for you. We’ve had nine cards. And yes, I think some of the decisions are debatable.
“I think the decision against Henry Arundell at the start of the Scotland game was confusing at best. I thought that one against Ellis to give a penalty try – I don’t follow it. I’ll ask for it to be explained to me.
“The scrum knock-on and the players are playing it [penalty advantage]. We’ve been told on the pitch it was a penalty advantage. And I know probably some people at home probably looking at why we played the way we did. And it should be explained that the players on the pitch were told it was a penalty advantage. So they played in a certain manner that knowing you had a penalty to go back to.
“Unfortunately, what happened in the background is the TMO would change it to a knock-on advantage. The players were unaware of it and France go down the other end and score a try. I think that World Rugby needs to look at that kind of situation. You can’t have the players playing with certain knowledge and then have it taken away from them. Knowing that, I think some of those bits I find confusing. And I’ll be very clear, our discipline needs to be better. We need to keep 15 men on the pitch. I’ll be asking for those to be explained.”
The result means that England have suffered their worst Six Nations campaign with four defeats. Yet the manner of the performance at least restored a measure of missing pride and will ease the pressure on Borthwick’s position in the short term after the Rugby Football Union issued a measured vote of confidence in him following a first ever loss to Italy.
“I believe I am the right man to lead this team forward regardless,” Borthwick said. “The team has been going through a tough spell, but it has a lot of growth in it. This experience and pain everyone is feeling now will be used to make the team stronger. Myself, Maro and the hierarchy at the RFU all share that vision.
“I am really disappointed for the players and the supporters, they players played so well and it was so close to be a special day. Games against France have been so close recently. They have been epic games.
“The team when it spends more time in camp together, it significantly improves but ultimately I am gutted. We came in with such high expectations but, ultimately, we have not been able to meet them. We are all hurting but there is a determination to make sure this hurt makes the team stronger.”
In the build-up to the match, captain Maro Itoje had said that the match would be a test of character and they delivered their best performance of the campaign. “We had a tough couple of games and tonight we are disappointed to lose but we showed the spirit of this team,” Itoje told ITV Sport. “In sport you often don’t want to go through what we have in the last four games but I truly believe we are going places and will be better for it.
“We knew we had to attack the game more, our conversion of territory into points had to get better and it paid dividends. We need to attack the game. We will regroup and be better.”