On this day 2013: Hartley allegedly calls Barnes a 'f***ing cheat'

Dylan Hartley missed the subsequent British and Irish Lions tour through suspension after becoming the first player to be sent off in a Premiership final, on this day in 2013. The Northampton captain was dismissed for allegedly calling referee Wayne Barnes a “f***ing cheat” shortly before the interval during his side’s 37-17 defeat to Leicester at Twickenham.

Hartley has always maintained his volley of abuse, which followed earlier warnings from the Premiership match official, was not directed at Barnes but he was hit with an eleven-week ban. He had been due to travel with the Lions to Hong Kong two days later, ahead of their three-match series in Australia.

Ireland’s Rory Best took his place in Warren Gatland’s tour squad. Hartley’s history of disciplinary problems was well known and he lost his cool after Leicester pushed too early in the scrum.

The England hooker insisted - via Saints director of rugby Jim Mallinder - that his comments were aimed at Tigers hooker Tom Youngs. Speaking about the incident two years later, he said: “I felt like a pariah and I cemented a reputation that I am resigned to never losing. I do not think anything worse can happen to me in rugby.”

New Zealand-born Hartley twice captained England to Six Nations glory but was not selected for the Lions tour of his homeland in 2017 and retired in 2019. He recently took up a new rugby role, agreeing to become director of rugby at Dubai Sharks, a second-tier UAE club that finished in sixth place in its most recent campaign.

He said about the appointment: “Every club should have ambition. I wouldn’t join an organisation unless we had ambition. We want to win. We want to do things and achieve, but there is a process to that. Long-term, if we think about playing Premiership rugby and competing there, that could be a realistic long-term goal for us.

“In terms of the short-term and where we focus now, it is on our youth. We have a great youth set-up, with 350 kids growing to 400. Imagine if we could do such a good job with our kids and retain them, we could be playing on the big stage in a few years’ time because we are not looking for players, we have grown our own and are looking after our own.”