RFU provides relief from England whining

It was never going to be a pretty sight, England's rugby union team coming down from the mountain top, but who could have reckoned on quite such ugliness of the spirit?

It was never going to be a pretty sight, England's rugby union team coming down from the mountain top, but who could have reckoned on quite such ugliness of the spirit?

The level of whining after defeat in Dublin was surely unprecedented and there can only be great relief that the Rugby Football Union finally decided to investigate the comments of the coach, Andy Robinson, and the even more outrageous ones of Twickenham's quaintly titled élite referee manager, Colin High. No one is saying that the South African match official, Jonathan Kaplan, performed like a master of the rugby universe, but what England said was that he refereed just one team. That was to attack not so much Kaplan's judgement as his basic integrity.

Kaplan certainly wasn't helping Ireland when he allowed England's only try after Danny Grewcock had neutralised Ireland's Ronan O'Gara off the ball. Furthermore, if anyone wants to give a definitive verdict on whether Josh Lewsey successfully touched down over the Irish line, it would be good to see the evidence, filmed or perhaps explained, if it could be, by the most intuitive eye ever trained on a small mountain of writhing bodies.

Give or take those debatable decisions, England had plenty of chances to win. But the Irish defence was magnificent, their winning try exquisite and maybe England simply weren't good enough.