England accuse Australia of illegal play at the breakdown before crunch Test

England have accused Australia of persistent illegal play at the breakdown ahead of their crunch Test match at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham this weekend.

The two teams come together on Saturday to begin the autumn internationals with a bang, and tensions will be raised after news emerged of England’s efforts to make match officials aware of what the home side views as constant infringements going unpunished.

England head coach Steve Borthwick met with match referee Nika Amashukeli, according to The Daily Telegraph, to bring to his attention numerous side entries at the ruck by Wallabies players during this year’s Rugby Championship.

Coaches are allowed to meet the officials before an international Test match. England are reported to have raised concerns for the safety of their players at the clear-out as well as taking issue with the potential match advantage from coming in at the side.

The laws of the game state: “An arriving player must be on their feet and join from behind their offside line; a player may join alongside but not in front of the hindmost player.”

Neither Rugby Australia nor the Rugby Football Union have commented.

Borthwick and his No 2 Richard Wigglesworth also met with England cricket coach Brendon McCullum and his assistants in Manchester in the build up to their autumn campaign. Both teams face key assignments against their great rivals with the Wallabies visiting before England's cricket stars head to Australia for the Ashes series.

McCullum has overseen a national revival through the use of an aggressive, high-risk playing style, with his mental approach of particular interest to his rugby counterparts.

“We talked about loads of stuff. There was a lot of mindset stuff. I asked Brendon how he changed that in English cricket, which was really interesting,” defence coach Wigglesworth said. “Then we got into the technicalities of coaching someone one-on-one, what that looks like, his role as head coach in that versus his assistants. We sat for a good period of time and took loads from it. They’re on to a good thing.

“They’ll go out and give it a great dig – as English teams who are playing against Australia want to – and hopefully we stick one on the board on Saturday. It’s a great rivalry with Australia. Both sides really enjoy playing against each other because there's something there. Bring on Saturday.”

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