The late chaos and reaction from Welford road as Borthwick calls Pat Lam a liar and a scuffle breaks out after the final whistle

June 06, 2021
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Ultimate Rugby

Tempers boiled over at Welford Road on Saturday afternoon as Bristol Bears secured a home semi-final in the play-offs in controversial fashion with a 26-23 win.

The clash between the Tigers and Bears ended after 90 minutes with a significant post-match scuffle. In the final play of the game, Bristol scrumhalf Andy Uren stole the ball out the back of a Tigers’ 5m scrum from the Bears' tryline.

The Bears were down to 14-men were under tremendous pressure from Leicester’s dominant scrum as Nahuel Tetaz was sent to the sin bin for repeated penalties.

Moments before the final scrum of the game, the two directors of rugby Pat Lam and Steve Borthwick engaged in a heated conversation inside the technical area as a debate raged, with referee Ian Tempest involved. John Afoa, who had been brought into the team as a late injury replacement for Kyle Sinckler, who failed a late fitness test, had been brought off as a tactical change at half-time. Afoa was required to come back onto the pitch after Nahuel Tetaz's yellow card and sacrifice another player to keep the scrums contested.

However, Pat Lam initially refused to send him on saying there had been an administrative error and he should have been noted as an injury replacement at halftime. Had he been listed as injured, the Bears could have gone to uncontested scrums but would have had to go down to 13 men, sacrificing another player as ‘punishment,’ as per the rules of the game.

Referee Ian Tempest tried to resolve the situation and said: "I'm asking the team manager - is this player injured? He's on the card as tactical."

He continued: "I'm being told he's come off tactically. On the card, it says tactical. He's tactical on the card which has been given in by your team manager, which is quite clearly here.

"You're now telling me this player is injured and cannot return to the field of play.

"In that case, the yellow card has caused the uncontested scrums, you will lose an additional player, so you need to pick someone else to lose from the field of play. You will play with eight in the scrum. You need to call someone else off, please."

Eventually, Afoa took the field for the final scrum and arguably got the better of Ellis Genge, who was dominating beforehand.

Borthwick though was furious and said: "He [Lam] just said he was injured. Don't lie Pat, don't lie! Just don't lie."

A crazy end at Welford Road!! 😲

Nahuel Tetaz was shown a yellow card with time up on the clock...

Afoa had previously come off as a 'tactical' sub but tensions rose with both coaches

Eventually, Afoa came on and 🐻stole the ball to secure the win pic.twitter.com/8cp5XvJb8v
— Ultimate Rugby (@ultimaterugby) June 5, 2021

Afoa’s decision to come on, with Lam having declared him injured moments earlier, led Borthwick to accuse his opposite number of ‘lying.’

After Uren kicked the ball into touch, the tempers boiled over with some handbags on the sideline as Bristol came away with a controversial 23-26 win.

After the contest Lam revealed that Afoa ultimately took matters into his own hands, which was ultimately within the rules as he was not listed as injured, despite Lam saying he was.

"John Afoa got injured in the Gloucester game, was due back next week, been training with the guys," Lam told BT Sport.

"Kyle Sinckler, he trained on Thursday, just felt a twinge in his hamstring.cWe said if we're going to play Johnny we might as well start him, and then get him off at half time.

"That's what we did. You all know I never take John off at 40 minutes.

"When that happened at the end there and he needed to go back on, I didn't realise that he was on a tactical sub. I thought it was on injury, so with that they wanted him to go back on.

"I didn't realise it was a tactical sub." - Pat Lam gives his view on the late drama pic.twitter.com/IPyYgiqLyU
— Ultimate Rugby (@ultimaterugby) June 5, 2021

"My concern was that we'd driven up here because of Covid, he's nearly 40 and he sat there the whole half.

"Although they'll say that's down as tactical, I'll say 'well, look at the safety of John'. Then the Leicester boys started coming in and accusing us of stuff, and Johnny just said 'bugger it, I'm going'.

"I wasn't happy but John said 'no, I'll just do it'. He went and did the job."

Steve Borthwick's response after the game: