Woody: Give our £10,000 to Samoa

Despite his ban, Walsh is still expected to be one of the candidates to take charge of the final, unless New Zealand are in it.

Woodward returned to England's Gold Coast base at noon today, missing morning training for Sunday's game against Uruguay.

He is mindful of the financial plight facing the Samoan Rugby Union, whose side at this competition are without key men contracted to provincial and club sides around the world.

He said: "The Samoans have been outstanding and my respect for them, especially Michael Jones and John Boe, their coaches, is immense. Their line is that they didn't want anything to tarnish what was a great game of rugby and they were clearly being put under a fair amount of pressure to say something and they wouldn't have anything to do with it.

"They said that it was a storm in a teacup and England had probably done what many other teams had done but they didn't want to be involved. So my thanks goes to them.

"That's what World Cups are about, supporting other teams. I hope the IRB hands over the £10,000 to the Samoan Rugby Union because I think that they deserve it more than any other team that I have seen here so far."

Responsibility for allowing replacements on to the pitch against Uruguay will be handed to another member of England's management and Reddin - who according to evidence released today was told five times not to put Luger on the pitch - will be in the stands for two games.

"I think that is the right course of events for this weekend," Woodward added. "Obviously all sorts of things can happen in a World Cup, that is why I brought a lawyer with me. I think we've taken it in our stride and handled it very well.

"I think the outcome is fair and it has just been a minor distraction. What happened on Sunday will not happen again. We made an error, we have learned from it and we are looking forward to the rest of the World Cup."