Today is day 309 of 1 449 as world champions.

Feels good, right? Say it out loud.

There you go.

As far as famous missed tackles go, South Africans will always remember Cheslin Kolbe leaving English skipper Owen Farrell for dead in the 2019 Rugby World Cup final.

Let’s treat ourselves to another viewing because we could all use a lift on this, a Monday:

This will never cease to give me goosebumps, and it’s all the more enjoyable when you consider how Farrell went unpenalised for a no-arms tackle on Springbok Andre Esterhuizen during a November 2018 showdown at Twickenham, which cost us the chance to secure a last-gasp victory.

A few weeks later, and he was doing the same thing against Australia.

(By the way, you can see a similar 3D-style look at Makazole Mapimpi’s World Cup final try here.)

Now that we’ve reminisced, let’s look at Farrell’s horror tackle from this past weekend, which saw the Saracens man red-carded in Saturday’s Premiership defeat to the Leinster Wasps.

18-year-old Charlie Atkinson, making just his second start in England’s top-flight, is the man on the receiving end:

The man hates using his arms in the tackle, and when he does, it often ends in disaster.

At the time of his sending off, the score was tied up at 15 apiece with 20 minutes to play, but Saracens went on to lose 18-28.

Farrell will now face a disciplinary hearing tomorrow evening, and RugbyPass columnist and former England international Andy Goode believes he could be slapped with a lengthy ban:

Farrell is always trying to make big hits and he tackles high so he knows himself that he’s treading a very fine line. Player safety is rightly paramount nowadays, though, and he’s out of control more than he’s in control when he’s tackling like that.

It absolutely shouldn’t matter that he’s Owen Farrell or that he’s the England captain when it comes to the disciplinary hearing this week….

If it was a Pacific Islander who was the guilty party, you would definitely have people calling for and even expecting the biggest ban possible. That isn’t right at all and it’s important that all players are judged equally…

The entry point for a lower end dangerous tackle is two weeks and for mid-range it is six weeks but this is clearly a top end offence for me so the entry point is 10+ weeks.

Goode went on to say that he expects a 16-week ban could be given, reduced to eight weeks on appeal, meaning he would be back in time for England’s international matches towards the end of the year.

While nasty hits are reasonably commonplace in a high-impact sport such as rugby, Farrell is under increased scrutiny due to past onfield actions.

SA Rugby Mag dug into the YouTube archives and found videos like this, showing some of those incidents:

Popular YouTube channel Rugby Beast even went as far as to ask if Farrell is the most hated man in world rugby back in March:

I would say Israel Folau has that title all wrapped up for the foreseeable future, but it’s never nice to have your name in the mix.

Cheslin Kolbe sends his condolences, pal.

[sources:rugbypass&sarugbymag]