Video: Owen Farrell red-carded for shocking tackle, faces missing Saracens' Champions Cup quarter-final
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..."
Latest Comments
It is crystal clear that people who make such threats on line should be tried and imprisoned. Those with responsibility in social media companies who don’t facilitate this should be convicted. In real life, I have free speech to approach someone like Reinach and verbally threaten him. I am risking a conviction or a slap but I could do it. In the old days, If someone anonymously threatened someone by letter the police would ask and use evidence from the postal system. Unlike the Post, social media companies have complete instant and legal access to the content in social media. They make money from the data, billions. Yet, they turn a blind eye to terrorism, Nazi-ism and industrial levels of threats against individuals including their address and childrens schools being published online all from ananoymous accounts not real speech. They claim free speech. The fault is with the perps but also social media companies who think anonymous personas posting death threats constitutes free speech.
Go to commentsSo if this ain’t the best Irish team ever then who exactly is? I don’t remember any other Irish team being this good & winning a series in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Yes I may rip them often for 8 X QF RWC exits & twice not even making it to the QF, but they’re a damn good team who many think can only improve, including me!
Go to comments