England brought to book

The involvement of McLaughlin will mean another delay in bringing the situation to a speedy conclusion with a reprimand and fine for England, and a reprimand and one-match ban the most likely outcome for Reddin, the team's fitness expert, who was in charge of the replacements.

The issue ignited when Luger ran onto the pitch in the final minute of the win over Samoa last Sunday after Mike Tindall, the centre, was injured.

Luger did not receive clearance from Kiwi Steve Walsh, the fourth official, who told referee Jonathan Kaplan on the radio link that "England have an illegal 16th player on the pitch". Bowden, the fifth official, was in charge of the England replacements.

Luger made one tackle during his 34 seconds on the pitch before being ordered off and England finished the match with 14 players. Tindall tried to get back on after Luger was dismissed but the touch judge refused to let him enter the field of play again.

Opposition coaches Eddie Jones, of Australia, and Bernard Laporte, of France, have called for England to be reprimanded but both men believe stripping the English of the match points would be inappropriate.

Under International Rugby Board regulation 3.2, England should have been penalised by Kaplan as soon as Luger came on, but this did not happen. As a result, England are now in a situation where a precedent is going to be set and that is why legal advice has been sought.

The mistake has enabled England's detractors to stick the boot in all week with Toutai Kefu, the injured Wallaby vice-captain, the latest to hammer Woodward's team in print, producing a column that called for Cup organisers to strip Woodward's men of their match points

Woodward today launched a remarkable verbal counterattack on the "idiots" sniping at England throughout the Rugby World Cup campaign.

He said: "I believe that 99.9 per cent of Australians are fantastic people but there are one or two idiots who ruin it. A lot of friends keep ringing me up out here to say "sorry" and that's great. It is amusing to read these comments but they say more about he people making the criticisms than us."

THE RULE:

Law 3.2: Objection: at any time before or during a match a team may make an objection to the referee about the number of players in their opponents' team. As soon as the referee knows that a team has too many players, the referee must order the captain of that team to reduce the number appropriately. The score at the time of the objection remains unaltered.
Penalty: Penalty at the place where the game would have restarted.