‘I really need to knuckle down – I’m missing out’
JOE MARLER is 53 caps into his England career but admits it is only his most recent ban that has made him realise there is no upside to being suspended and sent to rugby’s equivalent of naughty-boy nets.
The Harlequins prop has nearly finished a six-week spell on the sidelines after being sent off for a vengeful clear-out of Sale’s TJ Ioane and will be free to play again on Tuesday.
Marler and James Haskell, another recent offender whose ban for a red card expired on Monday, have been in the England camp since the start of the Six Nations – and it has not been a bed of red roses.
They have felt Eddie Jones’s sharp tongue and taken a full part in training, including Tuesday’s scrum session against Georgia, and had to do extras while other players had their feet up.
Marler, now in the frame to play Scotland a week on Saturday, revealed he could not bring himself to watch England’s 12-6 win over Wales last Saturday until the nail-biting climax. “I couldn’t actually watch it,” said Marler. “I got in the car just before kick-off and listened to bits on the radio. There was a lot of me that was gutted because it is my favourite fixture: England-Wales, the best game I love playing in and being involved in, and I was gutted not being part of it.
“I watched the last five minutes, I kicked the kids and the wife out of the lounge. It sticks with me that I really need to knuckle down now because I am missing out on these things that I really want to be a part of.
“It is awful because there is no being managed in order to peak for Saturday. There is no Saturday for me and Hask.
“In the last few weeks we have been up at the crack of dawn and rooming together – that’s an experience in itself with Hask – and we have just been flogged. Rightly so a little bit, as a punishment I guess, but also you haven’t got a game to save yourself for.” Marler has been told to watch his step by the England head coach, but most of his indiscretions have come at club level, even if the bans have cost him plenty of caps.
He was banned for two weeks in 2011 for fighting with Leicester’s Marcos Ayerza and in 2016 copped another two weeks for kicking Grenoble hooker Arnaud Heguy.
He also got a three-week ban for elbowing Wasps’ Will Rowlands before Christmas. His only real offence for England came when he called Wales’ Samson Lee “Gypsy Boy” in 2016, which landed him with a fine and two-week ban.
Marler has always been a target for the wind-up merchants, but can dish it out himself. His latest experience is not going to change that, but he knows he must change the way he plays at Harlequins.
“International rugby and playing for your country is a pressured environment,” he said. “Any mistake you make or penalty you give away can have a huge repercussion.
“In a club game you can get away with a lot more, it’s a lot less pressured. It’s tougher than it used to be but I probably am a little bit fast and loose and try to get away with a bit much. That’s something I’ve spent the last six weeks thinking about.
“It’s just the mindset of remembering when someone wants to rile me up. I’m more than capable of ignoring it and getting on with the next job, as I’ve shown at international level.
“It is remembering those moments as opposed to someone elbowing me in the head and two minutes later thinking here’s a chance to get my own back. I’ve had that reputation for years and part of me relishes it a bit.”