Rugby enthusiasts have undertaken the task of ranking the most disliked player from each of the home nations. Interestingly, the selected players were all in the same position.
#1. Owen Farrell (England)
Could it be anybody else to start? Farrell fits the label “our guy” better than most, meaning you love to hate him unless he’s in your squad. Then you’d go to the end’s of the earth to defend him.
The England captain, also known as 'Shoulder boy' for his high tackling, does himself no favours with his poor tackling technique.
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.
#3. Johnny Sexton (Ireland)
The expert in unsportsmanlike behavior. Sexton is skilled in exaggerating contact or distracting officials, knowing precisely when to employ his repertoire of underhanded tactics.
His most recent example of on-field nouse came against Wales just last weekend. The yellow card handed to Liam Williams in the 65th minute for a high hit on Sexton took a while to come as it was reviewed from multiple angles by the officials.
Wales fans piled in on Sexton after the Williams sin-binning, with one writing: 'Sexton play acted a head injury. Blatant cheating.'
Another Wales fan vented: 'That Liam Williams yellow card shows why rugby will be dead in a few years – nothing wrong with Liams body shape and Sexton play acting sums up how rugby has drastically changed for the worse. It’s a mockery to the real injuries.'
Another commented on Sexton being seen winking after the card, and said that his behaviour would "destroy the spectacle that is International rugby"
#4. Finn Russell (Scotland)
During the Calcutta Cup clash at Twickenham, Russell chased the England captain at Twickenham to laugh at his opposite number as Duhan van der Merwe surged through England’s defence to score a solo try for Scotland.
Farrell had already smashed Russell earlier in the match, forcing the fly-half to knock the ball on, so this was a bit of revenge.
Speaking to the Rugby Pass podcast, the Scotland fly-half said: “Faz [Farrell] had just banged me and I had lost the ball,” Russell told The Offload.
“Then they kicked it long and I was on the ground. I thought it was Faz but it was actually Marcus [Smith] or [Joe] Marchant that were mouthing off at me on the ground.
“As soon as Duhan went through I saw Faz and I went straight to him to give him a mouthful back.
“I just said ‘what you say now?’ kinda thing ‘anything else to say?’ cause obviously you’ve been mouthing off to me and Duhan’s run it back 60 metres. It wasn’t that much.”
The incident was seen in the replay of the try posted by ITV