Owen Farrell Banned From Listening To Live Reaction As England Captain Receives Four-Game Ban

Former international referee Nigel Owens believes Owen Farrell deserved a red card and thinks rugby is in trouble if tackles like that don’t result in players being sent off.

Speaking in his WalesOnline column, he said: “Do we have foul play? Yes we do. Do we have head contact? Yes we do. Do we have a high degree of danger? Yes we certainly do. Do we have mitigation? From my point of view, no. I don’t think there was any late change from Basham that Farrell couldn’t adjust to, he was the only player who contributed to the action of the tackle. action is always illegal, so the mitigation plays no role in the process.

“Now let me explain this. So if Farrell was in the process of making a legal tackle and suddenly there is a change of direction or a significant drop in height of the ball carrier (either voluntarily or due to another player) that made Farrell’s tackle illegal, then the referee would apply the mitigation.In that situation, there would be no way he could have changed what he was doing.

“The key to the mitigation here is that Farrell’s actions were always illegal. No matter what, he was always taking the lead with the shoulder and not trying to wrap for a legal tackle, so the mitigation doesn’t play and shouldn’t play a role in the decision.

“So there’s no mitigation for me, and certainly not enough to mitigate a red card, as it’s foul play, there’s a high degree of danger and there’s an illegal act that he’s leading with the shoulder.

“That meets everything the referee would be looking for in order to award a red card, and the general rugby public would be expecting to see a red card.”