The hefty ban Farrell faces and three other England talking points

England finally snapped their three-game losing streak under Steve Borthwick, their 19-17 comeback win over Wales at Twickenham giving them their first W since February.

It was also just their third Test win at RFU HQ in nine outings with the new head coach or Eddie Jones, his predecessor, at the helm and its importance can’t be underestimated given the cloud they have operated under in recent years.

Even Saturday looked set to end in disaster. Whatever game plan England were trying to play to wasn’t enjoying good reward and their late comeback owed more to ramped-up players on the pitch fighting situational adversity than something which Borthwick and co had them prepared for.

Steve Borthwick reacts to Owen Farrell’s red card and win against Wales

Steve Borthwick reacts to Owen Farrell’s red card and win against Wales

They essentially winged it and won, the type of victory that could be invaluable in steeling team morale.

What it says about the coaching staff and the rugby they are designing, the jury will remain out on that for another four weeks yet as the Rugby World Cup result versus Argentina is all that ultimately matters.

For now, here are four RugbyPass takeaways from Saturday’s Summer Nations Series win:

Repeat offender Farrell in real jeopardy
Call it karma. Last Monday, just on the pitch by the Twickenham tunnel, Owen Farrell was the butt of numerous good-natured England jibes when asked by his squad’s media team to take a Rugby World Cup squad selfie. He stood up from his chair, took the snap, tossed the phone back to its owner with a giggle and sat back down to huge slagging from his teammates.

Five days later, it was no laughing matter when he was forced to take up a seat literally yards away from where he had been happily sat at the start of the week. He was facing in the opposite direction, looking out onto the pitch rather than facing the stands, and it wasn’t a time for a selfie with Freddie Steward and Ellis Genge glumly sat alongside him in a three-man sin bin.

Steward and Genge were left stewing for just the 10 minutes, both getting back onto the field to play their part in a stirring comeback that saw England overcome a 16-17 deficit to win it with a George Ford penalty kick coming down the finishing straight.

In contrast, Farrell was told his yellow card for driving his shoulder into the head of Taine Basham had been upgraded to red and he now faces the disastrous prospect of missing – at a minimum – his team’s Rugby World Cup opener versus Argentina. You can’t see much if any mitigation being granted for Farrell at his upcoming midweek disciplinary hearing.

Last January, when cited for a similar shoulder-to-head contact after Saracens’ win at Gloucester in the Gallagher Premiership, Farrell’s reckless offence was given a six-game mid-range entry point when it came to sanction. That was reduced to four games when mitigation was applied, Farrell’s remorse/apology and good conduct at the hearing getting taken into account.

He was also offered the chance to attend tackle school, the World Rugby coaching intervention programme which, if successfully completed, would scratch the last game on his ban. Farrell went to school, came through the initiative and had his suspension cut to three games, freeing him to be selected by England for their Guinness Six Nations opener versus Scotland on February 4.

The issue now, though, is that he is listed on the disciplinary record as a “repeat offender” and mitigation will surely be difficult to secure if a mid-range six-game entry point is applied to his latest foul play.

Six games would be a disaster for the England skipper as it would mean he would miss his team’s entire World Cup pool programme (all four matches in France against Argentina, Japan, Chile and Samoa on top of the remaining August warm-ups versus Ireland and Fiji).

That type of lengthy suspension would make him unavailable until the mid-October quarter-finals and leave England reliant on George Ford/Marcus Smith to guide them through their RWC games in Marseille, Nice and Lille (two matches).

It’s a brutal situation for Farrell to now have to defend himself in, but there was a whiff of Steve Borthwick smugness at the England post-game briefing on Saturday night when he reminded everyone that this was why he felt compelled to select three players in each specialist position in his RWC squad (out-half, scrum-half, and all three front row positions).

“I said to you previously when I discussed the make-up of the 33 that having three players in key positions was very, very important in those specialist positions, so we always worked on the depth in those positions.” He has quickly been proven right, but not in the way that anyone would have imagined.

England repeatedly bad boys? Take a hike…
Borthwick fielded questions on Farrell in a number of different ways on Saturday night, but he refused to comment every single time, deflecting his answers away from the specifics of the red-carded.

Even when asked if Farrell had addressed the dressing room in the wake of his red card, the head coach explained that the only post-game commotion was a happy one – that the family of Ellis Genge had been allowed into the dressing room to see him presented with a silver cap on the occasion of his 50^th England appearance.

Borthwick also dismissed a query on the potential for the yellow-carded Steward getting cited in the coming days for his collision with Wales’ Josh Adams. “I don’t comment on situations like that,” he insisted.

What he did get exercised about was the suggestion that England had a serious disciplinary problem having suffered three yellow cards and a red. He wasn’t having that. “One of the simple generalisations is to say cards. If you look at each one they were unique to the other one. Everyone one of them was absolutely separate. We will look at each of them independently.

“In terms of the discipline of the England team, it has improved over the last period of time. Last week we gave away six penalties; the last count I saw (on Saturday) was 12 which is exactly the same as Wales and last week they were eight. The England team is actually improving discipline considerably.”

What unfolded in the Six Nations backed up his defence, England conceding the second-fewest of the six teams across that tournament. England’s concession of 47 penalties in their five matches was only bettered by champions Ireland who had 44. France were worse off on 53, Scotland and Italy were on 54 with Wales the most indisciplined on 63.

In terms of cards, Ireland had none, England had one yellow and a red card that was rescinded at a follow-up disciplinary, Scotland had one yellow and a red, France two yellows and a red, Wales three yellows and Italy five.

Try famine, yet booed kick was ultimately crucial
England are making for tough viewing with their inability to turn pressure into tries. They finished the Six Nations with just a single try in each of their matches versus France and Ireland and the struggle continued over successive Saturdays against Wales with Maro Itoje’s 68^th-minute maul try their only five-point in 160 Summer Nations Series minutes.

That’s four straight matches now in which they have been eclipsed on the try count and yet it ultimately was their final first-half decision to ignore the opportunity to fashion a try which won them the game. Rather than go to the corner for a lineout drive or take a tapped penalty five metres out from the Welsh line, Farrell decided to go for the posts to put England 6-0 up.

A chorus of boos reverberated around Twickenham over this decision but it can’t be denied that in a match that England ultimately won by two points on a 19-17 scoreline, the skipper’s unpopular decision to go for the sticks was vital.

Without it, George Ford’s 75th-minute kick wouldn’t have been for the lead. What Farrell did was a good example of England playing cup rugby ahead of the RWC, taking points when they are offered up to you on a plate in front of the posts.

Sluggish Billy V has a way to go yet
Billy Vunipola has been hyped by Borthwick as a must-pick England player now that Alex Dombrandt has been dumped at No8. The claim has been that the coach has never seen the seasoned Saracens back-rower as fit as he is now, but he was sluggish on Saturday in is first Test appearance in 2023. Normally if he was at the top of his game, he would be topping his team’s ball-carrying chart in the forwards but he finished down the list.

He was credited for 22 metres from nine carries, less than Ben Earl who had 46 metres from 13 runs and Jamie George who was 35/11. Even Maro Itoje was prominent, making 14 metres from eight carries. Admittedly, Earl, George and Itoje played the whole 80 minutes compared to Vunipola’s 61 but much more was expected than what he delivered.