Lawrence's play-acting was shameful to watch

OLLIE Lawrence's sham injury in the closing minutes of a knife-edge finish between Northampton and Bath at Franklin's Gardens last weekend has seen some commentators get themselves in an almighty tangle.

- 

The apologists for Lawrence are snagged on the biggest of thorns, and they fall into a couple of categories both based on the utterly false game-destroying premise that, despite the lack of integrity in his actions on the pitch, he did nothing wrong.

One argument put forward is that the Bath and England centre's decision to fall to his knees and cradle his face in his hands after an accidental glancing clash of heads with Saints scrum-half Alex Mitchell, is a non-story.

It relies on the rationale that examples of rugby players play-acting are so few and far between that there is no threat of an epidemic taking place in the 15-man code. The opposite is true, which makes it a very dangerous assumption.

The other defence of Lawrence, after an incident which led to the referee, Anthony Woodthorpe, stopping the match and the incident going to TMO review, is even more corrosive.

This argues that Lawrence should be praised for pretending to be injured because it drew the referee's attention to an accidental high tackle, for which Mitchell deserved to be sin-binned. The centre was also eulogised for securing the subsequent Finn Russell penalty which saw Bath take a 34-32 lead with four minutes remaining.