sport news DAN BIGGAR: I told Owen Farrell he is NOT above everyone else in our Twickenham ... trends now
I really like Owen Farrell as a bloke, but I wasn’t going to allow him to speak to me like he did at Twickenham on Saturday night which is why we had a spat.
I’ve got no issue with Owen – we’ve been team-mates with the Lions – but he made it personal by coming at me in the second half at Twickenham.
‘Stop complaining,’ was what Farrell said in my direction, just after he’d hit Taine Basham high. I thought it was a clear red card and was just airing my view.
I told Farrell that people are allowed to have a go at him. He’s not above everyone else. Owen is such a competitive guy, just like I am, and it was a heat-of-the-moment incident.
I was very surprised Farrell and Freddie Steward weren’t sent off immediately. Both were given yellow cards, but Owen’s was upgraded to a red by the new television bunker system.
Owen Farrell performed a 'no-arms' tackle in the second half that got him into trouble
After a TMO review, Farrell was shown a red card and may miss some of the World Cup
I did not like the way Farrell spoke to me after the decision, and told him he deserved to be sent off
That will mean he’s likely to get a ban, one which could rule him out of the start of England’s World Cup campaign. As much as we went head-to-head at Twickenham, the World Cup will be all the poorer if Owen is forced to be on the sidelines. It will be a big blow to England.
I think our flashpoint became a big thing because England were on the ropes at the time. They were under pressure after what was a pretty poor first half. That’s probably putting it kindly!
It was a very, very ugly game of rugby and it was absolute carnage at the end with all the cards!
It was crazy on the pitch, with lots of disruption and not much control to the game.
There were six cards in total, four for England and two for Wales but I’ll admit I definitely lost count at one point!
From a Wales perspective, we were very disappointed to lose. England celebrated very hard at the final whistle but personally, I don’t mind that. They have been on a losing run, they lost to us in Cardiff last weekend, and they’ve been copping plenty of pelters in the media.
If they’d lost to us at home too then they’d have really had both barrels! I think both teams won’t be especially happy after the two matches we’ve had in the last fortnight.
When we played England in Cardiff last week, they played a lot of rugby off nine and tried to batter the door down. We picked a team full of young guys with
