Farrell has a long and ugly track record

Fuck Owen Farrell, fuck the RFU, and fuck that bloom* of a disciplinary panel.

Farrell has a long and ugly track record of this kind of horror tackle. He's been to tackle school, and obviously flunked it because he's learned nothing and has no remorse. His only defence is that he's been allowed to get away with it for so long, why should he take it seriously now?

The RFU's decision to appeal and presumably pay a small fortune for a KC to hypnotise the rubes on the panel into imaging they saw some mitigation was a shocker. There might be no room for sentiment in elite sport, but there is room for integrity.

The RFU is talking a big game about tackle safety in the community game, and this completely undermines that message and makes them look shameless. Just because they could, doesn't mean they should have. And of course it's backfired - now the whole debacle is running on longer, when they could have just put it behind them and planned for having Farrell back for the knock-out stages (pun intended).

And the panel has been made to look like a bunch of fools, accepting some mitigation that Blind Willie McTell could see is non-existent. A month out from the highlight of the rugby calendar, they've made a mockery of the whole process, undermined a ref and TMO who made a correct decision, undermined the whole bunker review process, undermined the message that WR take dangerous tackles seriously, and given the impression that any union who can afford top, top lawyers can write their own rules.

Fuck the lot of them. I hope WR's appeal succeeds, Farrell gets the substantial ban he deserves, and everyone can learn from this sordid affair and avoid it happening again.

* (Bloom is the collective name for jellyfish)