After his contentious performance against the New Zealand haka on Tuesday night, England prop Joe Marler deactivated his X account.
In Steve Borthwick’s game on day 23 of this Saturday’s Autumn Nations Series opening against the All Blacks at Allianz Stadium in Twickenham, the loosehead was left out earlier in the day.
Ellis Genge was selected as the starting loosehead, with Fin Baxter filling in from the bench. Ellis Genge missed the summer tour to Japan and New Zealand.
The 34-year-old Marler was one of 13 players in the 36-man England team that were surplus to need for the opening of the four November games, which also included matches against Australia, South Africa, and Japan in London.
Marler shared two messages on X, the social networking site that was formerly known as Twitter. “The haka must be binned. “It’s absurd,” he wrote in his first post.
There was another message after this. “It is only useful when teams genuinely respond to it in some way. as last week’s league boys did.
Marler brought up the England vs. Samoa match in Wigan last Sunday, where the Samoans eye-balled their English opponents in a head-to-head standoff while doing their pre-game dance. In rugby union, on the other hand, New Zealand customarily does their haka as the opponent stands in their own half of the field.
Marler was a member of the match on day 23 that went over the line, and England was punished in 2019 for breaking the rule before the Rugby World Cup semi-final in Japan. The front-rower has now gone nuclear and deleted his X account in response to the overnight commotion that his two postings sparked.
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