ANDY ROBINSON kept his remarks about England’s team to play Italy on Saturday briefer than usual yesterday. He had, though, received only a slap on the wrist from his employer about speaking out of turn; Colin High, the RFU’s elite referee manager, has been suspended from his role as an international referee assessor and will be fined for his frank comments about the officials who handled England’s most recent international match.

Francis Baron, the RFU chief executive, must still confirm the findings of Jeff Blackett, the union’s disciplinary officer, but High’s unguarded statement to a daily newspaper after the 19-13 defeat by Ireland in Dublin last month will surely cost him dear.

Blackett’s recommendation is that he be warned in writing about his future conduct and, by way of financial penalty, should make a £1,000 donation to the IRB’s tsunami appeal.

It must be hoped that the union decides that that is enough because it has it in its power to terminate High’s management role. As it is, his role as an assessor — he has been removed from that function for the final round of the RBS Six Nations Championship on March 19 — lies in the hands of the IRB’s selection committee when it meets next month.

High is a former international referee and knows what he is talking about. There is, moreover, a need for officials to clarify contentious decisions as and when the need arises, but Blackett’s recommendations seek a balance. Rugby has seen the manner in which match officials in other sports regularly receive verbal abuse (if not worse) and they do not like it, hence the need for the sport at the highest level to set the best of examples to the club game.

Whether the paper concerned regrets its part in the furore is, in some ways, neither here nor there because High should have known better.

Robinson was almost caught in the same net. Neither the IRB nor the Six Nations took exception to his comments immediately after the match in Dublin, but they immediately requested an RFU investigation once High’s strong criticism of Jonathan Kaplan, the South African referee, appeared 48 hours later, with Robinson also being quoted as saying only one of the two teams had been refereed.

“Match officials, like players, sometimes make mistakes,” Blackett said. “There’s a process by which they are assessed and team management can input privately to that assessment. Professional members of the team and union management must resist opportunities to make critical comments in public.”

High breached IRB regulation 20.1.5, designed to avoid public criticism of match officials, whereas Robinson’s offence was perceived to be at the lowest end of that particular rule. He has been formally reminded of the terms of that rule and to avoid critical comments of officials at post-match interviews.

High went much farther, saying that Kaplan’s had not been an “international performance” and that it would have been unacceptable in the Zurich Premiership. “If one of my referees had done that, I would have had my backside kicked,” High added. He has apologised in writing to the IRB, the Six Nations, the South Africa RFU (Kaplan’s employer) and the Premiership directors of rugby, several of whom have also fallen foul of the RFU’s requirements in this respect.

Robinson has made only one enforced change to his squad for the match against Italy at Twickenham with the introduction of Iain Balshaw at full back for the injured Jason Robinson. It will be Balshaw’s first start since he won his 22nd cap against Ireland last March. Ben Cohen, the Northampton wing who fractured his cheekbone playing for the northern hemisphere against the south at Twickenham last Saturday, could be back in time for his club’s Heineken Cup quarter-final with Toulouse on April 2.

ENGLAND

I Balshaw (Leeds Tykes); M Cueto (Sale Sharks), J Noon (Newcastle Falcons), O Barkley (Bath), J Lewsey (London Wasps); C Hodgson (Sale Sharks), H Ellis (Leicester); G Rowntree (Leicester), S Thompson (Northampton), M Stevens (Bath), D Grewcock (Bath), B Kay (Leicester), J Worsley (London Wasps), L Moody (Leicester), M Corry (Leicester, capt). Replacements: A Titterrell (Sale Sharks), D Bell (Bath), S Borthwick (Bath), A Hazell (Gloucester), M Dawson (London Wasps), A Goode (Leicester), O Smith (Leicester).