Why England’s Tom Burgess should avoid ban despite yellow card

As England closed in on a second win of the World Cup yesterday the game got a bit fiery.

Shaun Wane’s side led 42-18 as the game drew to a close thanks to braces from wingers Ryan Hall and Dom Young as Elliot Whitehead, Luke Thompson and Victor Radley helped themselves to tries.

But more than once at the end of the game, there were instances where the two teams nearly came to blows the last of which saw England star Tom Burgess given a yellow card and placed on report.

Burgess has been outstanding in the first two games of the World Cup being a destructive force up the middle against Samoa and France.

So should this incident culminate in a ban, oh would be a pretty big loss for England especially should his ban go into the quarterfinals rather than just being a one game ban which would only see him missing the game against Greece next week.

However, based on precedent set last week, a ban for Burgess seems unlikely.

In the aforementioned game against Samoa Josh Papali’i was cited by the disciplinary for sparking a similar confrontation but avoided a ban due to the fact he didn’t throw a punch but simply pushed the England player.

This sounds awfully similar to Burgess’ situation so it seems that Burgess and Shaun Wane should be able to breathe easy today until the panel’s verdict tomorrow.