He was making his return to action after half a year on the sidelines.
Immanuel Feyi-Waboso endured a nightmare return for England as he was sent off during Saturday’s clash with France at Twickenham.
The winger was making his return to action after spending the last six months sidelined with a shoulder injury, which had previously halted an impressive run of individual form. Before that setback, the 22-year-old had scored five tries in his previous eight appearances for England, a run that had even placed him in the conversation for the upcoming British and Irish Lions tour.
On his return, there had been some talk he might be one of the possible injury replacement options for Andy Farrell Down Under.
However, his return to action didn’t go as planned. Sign up to Inside Welsh rugby on Substack to get exclusive news stories and insight from behind the scenes in Welsh rugby.
With the scores tied at 12-12, Feyi-Waboso was sent to the sin bin for horrific high tackle on France’s Antoine Hastoy just after half an hour.
You can watch the tackle below.
After an off-field review, however, the Exeter star’s fate was upgraded to a 20-minute red card.
There’s every chance he could yet face a lengthy ban for his actions, which have clearly blown a massive hole in any outside hopes of linking up with Farrell’s Lions squad later this summer.
He’s obviously also at risk of missing England’s tour of Argentina.
Predictably the incident caused quite a stir on social media platform, with one user on X writing: “How much blame for the Feyi-Waboso red lies with Borthwick? Throwing him straight back into the test arena after 6 months out is a big ask.”
“Immanuel Feyi-Waboso saw the Lions yesterday and clearly didn’t fancy two matches vs the Pumas this summer. What a shocker,” said another.
To compound matters for England coach Steve Borthwick, who was without 13 of his usual squad members, Romain Taofifenua’s late converted score handed a late 26-24 victory to France.
