Hot-headed Hartley has given Eddie a tough call

When Dylan Hartley’s swinging arm smashed into Sean O’Brien’s head at Franklin’s Gardens on Friday night, it was not just the Leinster flanker who thought the lights had gone out.

As Hartley hardly trudged off after being red carded by referee Jerome Garces he wore the expression of a man who had been cast into outer darkness. At the same time, Eddie Jones, who was watching the match from the stands, rubbed a hand across his eyes as if he could not quite believe what he had witnessed.

The thought that he would probably be without his captain for the start of the Six Nations, and may have to look for a permanent replacement, furrowed the England head coach’s brow even more.

Readers of this column will know that words of warning were sounded here over Jones’ appointment of Hartley. However, until the red mist descended just six minutes after Hartley’s 52nd minute arrival off the bench, the England coach’s poacherturned-gamekeeper appointment had worked a treat.

There has been plenty to like about Hartley’s captaincy of England over the last year. Despite the pressure piled on him on the playing front by Jamie George, the Northampton hooker has brought a common sense solidity to the England camp with his feet-on-theground approach to the job. This comes across in the way Hartley speaks in interviews, and given the 54-week banning orders he has to lug around as disciplinary baggage, he’s been impressive.

Given the length of Hartley’s list of misdemeanours it was understandable that the immediate reaction to his latest disciplinary lapse did not meet with much sympathy. However, in this incident, I am not sure that everything is as cut and dried as the brutal stiff-arm to O’Brien’s head looked.

While there can be no exoneration for any form of stiff arm tackle, there is a mitigating factor. Looking at the footage it is clear that as Hartley advances O’Brien is almost upright, but that he is just about to fall due to an ankle tackle by Tom Wood. This resulted in a Hartley ‘hit’ aimed at a target area below the Leinster and Ireland flanker’s shoulder blades missing them completely, and the swinging arm aligning instead with O’Brien’s neck and head as he toppled towards the ground.

My conclusion is that it was not a deliberate head-shot – but how much leeway that allows Hartley could be seen as a moot point because the rest of what he did was illegal. What is hardest to understand is why he did not line up O’Brien with a legitimate crunching tackle, in which he used his arms, and then looked to compete for the ball.

Instead, it was a cheap shot which was totally at odds with the way the ‘new’ Hartley has conducted himself as an unbeaten England captain over the last year. Jones warned Hartley before his appointment that if he slipped back into bad habits it would probably be one strike and out. The England coach said at the time: “He has made some mistakes. You just have to hope and pray it’s not going to happen. People mature. He’s got a wife, he’s got a young daughter. Life changes, priorities change. The biggest risk was not to take a risk.”

Since then Jones has praised Hartley consistently for taking the lead role within the England camp in creating more of a player-led environment, in which they take responsibility for their own standards.

Whether Hartley is given the chance to continue in the 2017 Six Nations will depend on how Jones tackles one of the most difficult decisions of his England coaching tenure.

“Why didn’t Hartley line up O’Brien with a legitimate crunching tackle?”