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Joe Marler breaks silence on incident with Alun Wyn Jones
By Online Editors
England prop Joe Marler has broken his silence on the Alun Wyn Jones incident in typically irreverent fashion on Twitter.
Marler, who has a colourful disciplinary history, escaped sanction for the first-half incident during a melee that went unnoticed by the match officials.
The loosehead grabbed the Welsh skipper's genitalia on camera in the opening minutes of the game and it was the talk of social media as a result.
Now he has addressed the matter on Twitter, posting: "B*****ks. Complete b******s."
The Marler incident has become something of a cause célèbre, with ITV Good Morning anchor Piers Morgan weighing in on the issue.
"There are now two types of people in the world - those who laughed at this Joe Marler incident, and those who think he should be arrested. I'm in the first category. Those in the second are f***ing exhausting.
The incident is likely to be looked at by the match citing commissioner, which could leave Marler in disciplinary trouble.
World Rugby's punishment for what they term "testicle grabbing or twisting or squeezing" ranges from a suspension of 12 weeks to 24 weeks or more.
"What would you do?" Jones said in a post-match media conference when asked about the incident.
"I've got 138 Tests for my country. If I react, I get a red card. It's tough, isn't it?
"Hopefully World Rugby have a look at it.
"Joe's a good bloke, lots of things happen on a rugby field. It's difficult as a captain these days because you can't speak to a ref about anything, it feels.
"I look at the touch judge, obviously he didn't see what happened and that's fine.
"There's a lot of footage that has been shown, it seems like a lot of supporters saw what happened.
"It's very frustrating that we talk a lot about TMOs and footage reviews, yet there doesn't seem to be a lot of it happening."
Jones was asked whether the incident should be taken lightly or treated as a more serious matter.
"I think it needs to be taken in the context of the game," he said.
"But with regards to the judicial panel that rugby has surrounding each game, as players – removing myself and Joe from this and the game itself – that's what we need to focus on.
"Not the incident or the individual."
Jones added that he shook hands with Marler after the game.
Additional reporting AAP
WATCH: Wales coach Wayne Pivac and captain Alun Wyn Jones speak at a press conference following the team's Guinness Six Nations match against England.
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Latest Comments
The boy needs to bulk up if wants to play 10 or 11 to handle those hits, otherwise he could always make a brilliant reserve for the wings if he stays away from the stretcher.
Go to commentsIn another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.
First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.
They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.
Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.
Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.
That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup
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