Touchline fiasco should never have happened

THE touchline row between Steve Borthwick and Pat Lam in the clash between Leicester and Bristol at Welford Road last weekend was a savage indictment of the Premiership in terms of professional standards.

- NICK CAIN

It was the sort of incident that makes elite Rugby Union in England look like an incompetent laughing stock compared to most professional sports. This time the fault-line was game-management rather than bogus promotion and relegation regulations, or broken salary caps, but it was yet another glaring example of how not to run a pro sport.

A match which was on a knife-edge, with Bristol defending a 26-23 lead as Leicester laid siege with a series of five-metre scrums, descended into a slapstick farce as Leicester head coach Borthwick became incensed by a front-row replacement intervention by his Bristol counterpart Lam.

The bad blood started with an 82 minute yellow-card for Bristol’s replacement tighthead, Nahuel Tetaz-Chaparro, after the Bristol front row had conceded a number of consecutive scrum penalties for collapsing. With the Argentinian prop in the bin the focus shifted to the Bristol bench, where their starting tighthead, John Afoa, was seated after being substituted at half-time.

The referee, Ian Tempest, asked the Bristol team manager – who is responsible for marking the team card to show whether a substitution is tactical or due to injury – whether Afoa was fit to go back on the pitch. Tempest’s words were: “He’s on the card as tactical. Can he come back on and scrummage?”