Joe Marler laid into former England teammate Luther Burrell after the former centre criticised how he was used during his international career.
A fan wrote on social media: “England U18s putting 40 points on France playing off the cuff with flair. Pack them off to Premiership Academies where that is drilled out of them and you get mediocre skills performed with great effort by gym-enhanced automatons.”
Burrell responded, writing on Twitter: “Banged on about this for a while, from my personal experience. There was a point in time where I could kick, pass and offload.
“I was trained to truck it up, win the gain line, used 80% of the time as a decoy runner. Times where I wouldn’t touch the ball for 30mins of a game!
Marler brutally responded: “I thought the 80% decoy stat was coz you couldn’t catch a cold……..”
SOCIAL REACTION:
One fan wrote: “That’s a bit low, Joe. Disappointing from you.”
A second commented: “Marler spends his entire life making nasty, unfunny jokes and then crying that people should be nicer to him.”
Another said: “Joseph …. Naughty step!”
“Ego off the scale” – Joe Marler reveals four players he can’t stand
England prop Joe Marler is never afraid of sharing an opinion or two – especially when it’s about someone he doesn’t particularly like.
#1. Gavin Henson
These two have history. Henson was ruled out for a number of weeks in 2016 after Marler clattered the Welsh Prince off the ball.
The England prop was returning to rugby after a troubled 2015-16 season, that prompted the loosehead to take a break from the game in the summer missing England’s historic 3-0 whitewash of the Wallabies Down Under.
A story from Marler’s book shows the ego of Henson in 2005 was off the scale. Being told to hurry up with his hair by his captain Gareth Thomas, the playmaker showed his skipper little respect.H
enson’s reply to Thomas was: “Alf, your mother and father have come to watch you play today, but there are 72,000 out there who have come to watch me.”