STEVE BORTHWICK, the Bath and England lock, has been cited for foul play after the brawl at the end of his team’s Zurich Premiership match against Newcastle Falcons on Saturday. The punch-up, which involved at least eight players, ended with Phil Dowson, the Newcastle No 8, being sent off and Tom May, the Newcastle wing, being shown the yellow card, but no Bath player was censured.
After viewing the video of the incident, Johnny Johnson, the citing commissioner, decided that Borthwick, who was seen landing several blows, has a case to answer. Borthwick, touted by some as an outside bet for the England captaincy, and Dowson will attend an RFU disciplinary hearing in Coventry on Tuesday. Newcastle felt initially that Dowson had been the victim of mistaken identity, but after an internal inquiry the player has been suspended by the club and will miss Sunday’s match against Harlequins. Dowson was sent off by Steve Lander, the referee, who took action after consulting Lloyd Jackson, the touch judge.
Newcastle ended the match with 13 players but still held on for a 33-18 victory. The scale of Bath’s defeat prompted an angry response from John Connolly, the club’s head coach. He was livid that so many tackles had been missed and called in the squad for extra training on Sunday. Last season’s success was built on a defence that conceded only 24 tries. Already eight have been let in this season.
Despite his displeasure, Connolly has resisted making wholesale changes for Saturday’s match away to Worcester, who, like Bath, have lost their first two matches. The one change that he has made sees Olly Barkley starting at fly half in place of Chris Malone, who has a groin and hamstring strain.
Connolly does not appear unduly worried by Bath’s unexpectedly poor start. “It is not all bleak by any means,” he said. “The expectation at the start of last season was simply not to get relegated. This year expectation is far greater after what we did. Whether the players have a hangover from last season, when we churned out win after win, I don’t know.”
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Bath are the highest-profile club on a list of 15 who will lose a proportion of their international match tickets this season. “These clubs, and one school, have contravened the terms and conditions under which match tickets are sold and have subsequently had some of their allocation withdrawn,” Paul Vaughan, the RFU’s commercial director, said. Barkley and Matt Stevens, the Bath players, were investigated last season by the RFU after tickets from their allocation turned up in the wrong hands, but this latest decision is unrelated.
“Bath Rugby sold two tickets in good faith at normal face value,” the club said in a statement. “After investigation, it appears that the initial purchaser could not attend the match and sold the tickets (again at face value) to a third party. We believe it was from this third party that the tickets ended up in the wrong hands.”
Orrell, from the National League first division, are also on the list along with the Royal Navy, Amber Valley, Ashfield, Bowdon, Gravesend, Hadleigh, Holt, Kendal, St Neots, Uckfield, University of Salford, Wasps (amateurs), Woodford and St George’s School, Harpenden.
The RFU management board agreed yesterday to allow Harlequins to play their home Heineken Cup tie against Munster in midJanuary at Twickenham. It will be the first visit by the Irish province to Twickenham since they lost the 2000 final to Northampton there and recognises the huge following they carry with them.