Former England and Northampton captain Dylan Hartley has disagreed with former teammate Luther Burrell, stating that he doesn’t believe racism is ‘rife’ in rugby union.
In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Burrell – who has played for clubs including Leeds, Sale, Northampton and Newcastle, plus Warrington in rugby league – spoke about dressing room “racial banter” that has “become normal” and “needs to be addressed”.
Hartley, who captained Burrell for club and country for almost a decade, categorically denied that any racism was present in either dressing room that he led.
Speaking on Sky Sports, he said: “I’d want to challenge the word rife. Does it go on? Potentially.
“In the environments I’ve been involved with Luther; nothing happened at Northampton and I can assure you nothing happened with England.
“I can’t speak for Luther’s experiences at other clubs and other environments. It’s a tricky subject.”
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Dan Biggar (Wales)
Biggar is the epitome of players you hate until they are on your team.The way the fly-half continues to moan to referees vociferously has seemingly only got worse throughout his career. It got so bad that popular online personality and diehard Scotland fan Glove39 made a video called ‘birdman’ mocking the way in which he always raises his arms in frustration to officials.