England inside centre Owen Farrell appeared to be involed in a pre-match scuffle with Scotland players prior to the Scots’ 25-13 win over Eddie Jones’ side at Murrayfield on Saturday.
The BBC reported a pre-match scuffle involving Farrell and Scotland players as both teams headed for the dressing rooms after completing their respective warm-ups.
BBC reporting a pre-match Scotland-England scuffle involving Owen Farrell…
— Ben Rumsby (@ben_rumsby) February 24, 2018
Video footage of the incident appears to show Farrell jogging his way through the Scotland players before pushing one of the players and sparking a scuffle in the tunnel.
https://youtu.be/_Xf297GksIw
The BBC consulted international referee Wayne Barnes to identify if a player could be punished by the referee for an off the field incident before a match had started, with Barnes reportedly telling the broadcaster that the referee only becomes the referee once the match has commenced.
Paul O’Connell, on commentary duty for the BBC, was quick off the mark about that.
“I wish I’d known that [when I was playing]!”
England coach Eddie Jones said that he was unaware of the incident but added that any pre-match confrontation shouldn’t detract from a Scotland win.
“I’ve been coaching a game. I’ve been pretty busy. Are you aware of it? You can show it to me after the press conference, then we can have a chat about it,” Jones said.
“In all seriousness, I don’t know about it. If there was, we shouldn’t let that detract from a great Scotland victory. Don’t get distracted by other things.
“Have you got an Iphone 10? The vision is better on an Iphone 10.”
Earlier in the week, Scotland centre Peter Horne said he was looking forward to having a crack at Farrell, but his comments weren’t exactly incendiary.
“Owen Farrell is one of the best players in the world,” said Horne.
“For me personally, it’s really exciting; you want to test yourself against these guys and see where we are at.
“In the past, some of our coaches have spoken to Saracens coaches and been down to training with them and I have picked up little drills that Owen does after training to try and help my own game.
“He’s a really special player and I am really excited to have a crack at him.”
