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Video: Owen Farrell red-carded for shocking tackle, faces missing Saracens' Champions Cup quarter-final
By Liam Heagney
England talisman Owen Farrell is in danger of missing Saracens' Champions Cup September 19 quarter-final at Leinster after he was red-carded in their Gallagher Premiership defeat to Wasps.
Saracens were beaten 28-18 at Allianz Park, Farrell's expulsion on the hour mark by referee Christophe Ridley tipping the balance the way of the high-flying visitors who consolidated their place in the push for the play-offs.
In contrast, the 2019 European and Premiership double champions were left to rue the potential negative impact the sending off of Farrell for a swinging arm will now have on their Champions Cup title defence.
Automatically relegated to the Championship for the 2020/21 season, Saracens have been targeting their quarter-final trip to Leinster, the team they beat in the 2019 final in Newcastle.
However, it now looks like Saracens will come to Dublin without Farrell lining out in direct opposition to Johnny Sexton, the Leinster talisman who on Friday night guided his team into another Guinness PRO14 final with a win over Munster.
There has long been a debate about the legality of Farrell's tackling style, with many fearing he was always likely to pay a heavy price at some stage for his robust approach. That now appears to have happened following his illegal high tackle on Wasps' Charlie Atkinson and he will face a disciplinary hearing on foot of his red card in London.
Commenting on Twitter about the incident, former England out-half Andy Goode wrote: "Shocking swinging arm from Owen Farrell and deserved a red card. Decent ban coming too, I talked about his tackle technique on @TheRugbyPod previously and it was a case of when this happened not if..."
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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