Steve Borthwick demands explanation on ‘confusing’ referee calls

Steve Borthwick will seek clarification from World Rugby about Ellis Genge’s “very debatable” yellow card as France snatched the Six Nations title at the death via Thomas Ramos’ injury-time penalty.

In an astonishing climax to perhaps the greatest ever Six Nations tournament, Tommy Freeman’s converted try three minutes from time gave England the lead for the third time in Paris.

However, Ollie Chessum was penalised for a high tackle allowing Ramos to kick a penalty for a 48-46 win which took the title from Ireland, who would have won with a French defeat.

Yet perhaps the most crucial period of the game came just before half-time when referee Nika Amashukeli ruled that Genge had deliberately collapsed a maul, sin-binning the prop as well as awarding a penalty try. France scored two further converted tries at the start of the second half while Genge remained in the sin-bin. England have conceded nine yellow cards in this year’s Six Nations, equalling an unwanted record set by Italy in 2002.

“I think there’s a few decisions in there,” Borthwick said. “I’ll be clear – our discipline needs to be better. You need to keep 15 men on the pitch. The teams are so good that when you do drop numbers, it makes life very, very hard for you. We’ve had nine cards. And yes, I think some of the decisions are debatable.

“I think the decision against Henry Arundell at the start of the Scotland game was confusing at best. I thought that one against Ellis to give a penalty try – I don’t follow it. I’ll ask for it to be explained to me.

“The scrum knock-on and the players are playing it [penalty advantage]. We’ve been told on the pitch it was a penalty advantage. And I know probably some people at home probably looking at why we played the way we did. And it should be explained that the players on the pitch were told it was a penalty advantage. So they played in a certain manner that knowing you had a penalty to go back to.

“Unfortunately, what happened in the background is the TMO would change it to a knock-on advantage. The players were unaware of it and France go down the other end and score a try. I think that World Rugby needs to look at that kind of situation. You can’t have the players playing with certain knowledge and then have it taken away from them. Knowing that, I think some of those bits I find confusing. And I’ll be very clear, our discipline needs to be better. We need to keep 15 men on the pitch. I’ll be asking for those to be explained.”

The result means that England have suffered their worst Six Nations campaign with four defeats. Yet the manner of the performance at least restored a measure of missing pride and will ease the pressure on Borthwick’s position in the short term after the Rugby Football Union issued a measured vote of confidence in him following a first ever loss to Italy.

“I believe I am the right man to lead this team forward regardless,” Borthwick said. “The team has been going through a tough spell, but it has a lot of growth in it. This experience and pain everyone is feeling now will be used to make the team stronger. Myself, Maro and the hierarchy at the RFU all share that vision.

“I am really disappointed for the players and the supporters, they players played so well and it was so close to be a special day. Games against France have been so close recently. They have been epic games.

“The team when it spends more time in camp together, it significantly improves but ultimately I am gutted. We came in with such high expectations but, ultimately, we have not been able to meet them. We are all hurting but there is a determination to make sure this hurt makes the team stronger.”

In the build-up to the match, captain Maro Itoje had said that the match would be a test of character and they delivered their best performance of the campaign. “We had a tough couple of games and tonight we are disappointed to lose but we showed the spirit of this team,” Itoje told ITV Sport. “In sport you often don’t want to go through what we have in the last four games but I truly believe we are going places and will be better for it.

“We knew we had to attack the game more, our conversion of territory into points had to get better and it paid dividends. We need to attack the game. We will regroup and be better.”

Ireland fury

England were criticised for their lack of professionalism in sealing the match as the result saw the Six Nations title drift out of Ireland’s grasp. Simon Zebo and Luke Fitzgerald, the former Ireland wings, were both critical of the way England players Ollie Chessum, Tommy Freeman and Henry Pollock handled themselves in the closing stages.

Fitzgerald was critical of Chessum’s failure to score under the posts as he celebrated an interception try before he had scored it.

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