Lawes sweats amid Puma citing fears

COURTNEY LAWES’ World Cup could be curtailed if Argentina cite the second row following England’s victory yesterday.

Ireland’s Murray Whyte, match disciplinary official, has 36 hours from the final whistle to study the tape and bring any citings. Lawes will discover by late tonight, whether he has questions to answer over tackles on Argentina centre Gonzalo Tiesi and hooker Mario Ledesma.

Tiesi suffered suspected knee ligament damage when he was hit by Lawes after kicking the ball while Ledesma took a knee to the head. Regulations allow teams to refer incidents to the citing commissioner within the first 12 hours.

England’s assistant coach John Wells said they had not made any official complaints, despite flanker James Haskell appearing to accuse one of the Argentina players of eye-gouging.

“We have made no complaints about whatever happened then,” said assistant coach John Wells.

“There is a citing commission in place, and if they choose to do something as a result of what happened then so be it. As far as we are concerned, that structure is in place for others to use. Let them use it if they want to.”

Haskell reacted angrily after a scuffle in the final seconds and was heard via the referee’s microphone swearing at his alleged assailant. Setanta Ireland apologised for the language and Haskell has subsequently followed that up with his own message of regret on Twitter.

“Just want to say sorry for the bad language, I clearly shouldn’t of [sic] sworn, bit of pressure out there. Onwards and Upwards,” he wrote.

Immediately after the match, Haskell played down the incident.

“At the last breakdown I got a bit wound up. I got cleared out, I had hands in my face and I think it was just a bit of over-exuberance in the end,” said Haskell.

“In the heat of the moment you react as you do. It is nothing really. It [eye-gouging] has happened to me a few times in my career. Tonight was nothing.

“I was obviously just stressed, it was a difficult game, we were under pressure. I got cleared out and had a hand on my face. It was nothing.”

Ben Youngs came off the bench to score the only try of the match after 68 minutes and Jonny Wilkinson’s conversion nudged England into the lead for the first time.

But England’s discipline was poor. They were second best for much of a brutal Test match and were heavily penalised by ref Bryce Lawrence.

Had the Pumas not missed a total of six penalty shots and a drop-goal they could have been out of touch by half-time, instead of just 6-3 up.

Argentina’s points came from two Martin Rodriguez penalties and one from Felipe Contepomi, the influential fly-half who was forced off injured in a ferocious first half.

Wilkinson was poor in front of goal, sending five penalty efforts shots — four in the second half as England struggled to find a way back into the game. But it was Youngs, sent on shortly after half-time for Richard Wigglesworth, who provided England’s inspiration.