The ban dispensation no longer open to Owen Farrell

England captain Owen Farrell has found himself in a tight spot after being red-carded for a dangerous tackle on Wales back row Taine Basham in yesterday’s Summer Nations Series test against Wales in Twickenham.

Initially yellow carded, the tackle was sent for a ‘Bunker’ review by referee Nika Amashukeli and it was upgraded to a red.

The tackle has thrown a major spanner in the works of England World Cup preparation and left the Saracens standoff facing a disciplinary hearing that could heavily limit his initial involvement at the Rugby World Cup.

In a best-case scenario for Farrell, he would be handed a three-game ban, mitigated down from six. This would see him miss the opener against Argentina in Marseille, but available for the rest of the tournament.

Just this week a similar tackle by Japan’s Pieter Labuschagne against Fiji saw him receive a three-game ban. However, Labuschagne is set to avail of World Rugby’s Coaching Intervention Programme – better known as tackle school – to reduce his ban from three to two.

However, any hopes that Farrell could do the same are lost as he has already attended tackle school and is technically a repeat offender. According to the regulation that was passed into law in 2021, a player can only attend tackle school if they have ‘been sanctioned for the first time by a disciplinary panel for foul play involving contact with the head’.

Farrell attended tackle school back in January after he copped a four-game ban following his citing for a shoulder-to-head tackle on Gloucester’s Jack Clement when playing in the Gallagher Premiership with Saracens.

The full duration of that ban would have meant him missing out on the first match of the new England era under Steve Borthwick. However, Farrell took up the disciplinary committee’s invitation to undertake the coaching intervention programme and he made it back in time for the Guinness Six Nations.

Speaking at the time, Farrell said: “It gives you a little bit of time, a little bit of a step back obviously with no game at the weekend, to have a look and have a look at it in good detail. What it does do is you look at what you can do better from the situations that are put you in it in the first place and I have obviously had time to step back and look at that. In terms of where the game is going and trying to make the game safer and making sure that it is played in the correct way and a good example for everyone, the game and the RFU are trying to make sure that it is going in the right direction.

“We as a team, as an England team, want to make sure we are at the forefront of that, we want to make sure that we are preparing in a way that we can play as hard as we possibly can and make sure it is as fair and as safe as we possibly can as well. I want to play a big part in that.”