Joe Marler is facing a season-ending ban for grabbing the genitals of Wales captain Alun Wyn Jones - and may even not play for England again.
The Harlequins prop has been ordered to appear before Six Nations disciplinary chiefs in Dublin on Thursday to answer a charge that he contravened rugby’s spirit of good sportsmanship.
England team mates Manu Tuilagi and Courtney Lawes will join him in the dock for ‘no-arms’ hits to the head of opponents in the same game. Tuilagi was sent-off, Lawes went unpunished.
And there could be further trouble brewing for England after organisers confirmed there is no deadline for them to rule on whether Eddie Jones warrants a misconduct charge for suggesting ref Ben O’Keefe was guilty of bias against his team.
Marler, 29, would appear in the most strife as the entry point for his alleged offence is 12 weeks - and if found guilty his chequered track record won’t allow much if any discount.
“Everyone is talking about it and they want to make sense of it,” Ugo Monye, former England wing and teammate of Marler, told the BBC’s Rugby Union Weekly podcast. “It’s a shame.
“For Joe, if that is your last game in an England shirt, if that is the last time you ever play at Twickenham – and I think there is every likelihood it could be - that is the sad thing for me.”
Monye, one of rugby’s brightest commentators, believes it is time cricket’s example is followed and players are hit in the pocket - rather than given bans - for abusing the values of the sport.
“I feel with rugby at the moment we see so much antagonistic behaviour on the pitch - so much goading, so much feigning of injuries, bad manners against referees.
“And for some of these moments within the game that you’re not going to get a TMO involved and it’s not a yellow card offence, where does it sit? It sits under rugby’s values.
“And if that’s the case, and we want to stamp it out of our game I think we should be fining the players a portion of their match fees.”
Marler, who tweeted “Bollocks. Complete Bollocks” BEFORE the decision to cite him, was branded an “egotistical narcissist” by ex-Wales captain Gwyn Jones on BBC Scrum V.
Jones added: “I don’t think there’s any doubt that was unacceptable to do what he did. If they could ban him for being an idiot they should, but I don’t know if they can.”
The Six Nations lost a third fixture with the French government’s decision to postpone Saturday’s Paris match between France and Ireland. But Wales and Scotland in Cardiff does go ahead.
