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'I'll tell you for a fact, if that happened at Twickenham, we'd be getting called 'English this and English that'


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England prop Ellis Genge has spoken out against what he believes is the hypocrisy of hostility being acceptable at Murrayfield.

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Yesterday England alleged that one of their backroom staff had been hit on the head with a plastic beer bottle when the team bus offloaded the squad at Murrayfield.

The SRU apologised for the incident although there is no evidence to suggest the bottle had been directed at the member of staff by anyone in the crowd; rather it appears a gust of wind had blown it off a gantry.

Abuse had been hurled at the English team however as they got off the bus and the failure of the crowd in the stadium to remain quiet during Owen Farrell’s kicks irked England head coach Eddie Jones.

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WATCH: Ireland head coach Andy Farrell and captain Johnny Sexton press conference following their victory over Wales in the Six Nations at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.

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“It was an old fashioned Calcutta Cup game, swirling wind and an aggressive crowd without manners,” said Jones. “I thought you were supposed to show kickers respect.”

Now loosehead Genge says that if something similar had happened in England’s home stadium, there would have been far more of made of it in the media and online.

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“I’ll tell you for a fact, if that happened at Twickenham – which it never does – we’d be getting called “English this and English that, can’t believe the lack of respect from the English, X, Y and Z,” he said.

“But it happens away at Murrayfield and everyone is happy about it, saying ‘it’s good for the game’.”

Following the match the England front-rower had taken aim at media critics.

“We had a bump in the road last week and everyone was writing us off, saying we weren’t good enough, saying that our coach should be sacked and that the boys were a different team from the World Cup,” Genge told BBC Sport.

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“It doesn’t sting but it’s classic isn’t it? You’ve got a lot of sausages saying things that just come to their head and what are they on about? We go out and win in Scotland away in the rain and now everyone’s singing our praises.”

Additional reporting PA

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Phantom 1 hour ago
Nations Championship: 'The data shows the north has finally caught up with the south'

Fact: the gap between the North and the South has narrowed considerably - that I get. However, determining that only selecting only Home grown players or playing in the home country is is the optimal strategy is a bit of a toss up and highly reliant on the economies of the home union. I do understand that England and to a lesser degree Ireland selects home based only. The top 14 is a massive threat to their domestic product. France would probably not be affected (the money is at home). Fiji, Argentina, Samoa, Italy and you could even argue Scotland have only benefitted from this. Their players either go overseas to learn at higher levels (Fiji, Samoa, Argentina) or players coming into their leagues to strengthen the home product and their National teams (Scotland, Italy, Japan).

South Africa used to limit its selection to the home based players, but the reality of a weak currency vs what players could earn oversees meant that you lost access to your best players at some stage of their careers, with very few exceptions. Kolbe left SA as he was considered too small for International Rugby (yes coaches/selectors view), but ironically in France he forced selectors to notice his endeavors and select him. He is only reaching 50 caps now despite being north of 30 - granted rotation and the odd injury also played a role, but for the most part it is having debuted or becoming a regular so late.



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