RugbyRebels

Different eras. Just as a flying clothes line gets a warning in 2003 whilst it gets a yellow or red in 2020, how to handle ref has changed. There’s also the point that a lot of Farrell’s poor interaction with the ref is spoilt, shouty child rather than Johnson’s incredulous disbelief. One gets dealt with man to man, whilst one is teacher and child. As an example of the changing capt & ref relationship, a lot of Robshaw’s interactions with refs were similar to Johnson’s but Robshaw was just called ‘Christopher’ and was sent away with his tail between his legs. Finally, Johnson was genuinely hard rather than a flying shoulder, school playground squabble merchant - rugby people have more respect for an old school ‘enforcer’, even refs.
In summation, we should probably make Mikey Brown’s mate captain as soon as he gets in the team.