England prop Joe Marler has again apologised to Bristol Bears flanker Jake Heenan, his Harlequins team-mates and the club following his latest ban.
Marler was suspended for comments made towards the back-row in a Premiership game at the Stoop last month, which Bristol Bears would go on to win 15-12.
His offensive remark about Heenan’s mother, who is ill, saw the Rugby Football Union issue the prop a two-match ban, with a further four weeks suspended.
It is not the first time Marler has been in trouble for disciplinary reasons as in 2016, he was handed a two-week ban and fined £20,000 for calling Wales tighthead prop Samson Lee “gypsy boy”, and two years ago he was given a 10-week ban for grabbing Wales second-row Alun Wyn Jones’ genitals in a Six Nations game.
Had apologised to Heenan
An independent disciplinary panel took the England international front-rower’s chequered history into account, but also noted that he had apologised to Heenan.
“I’m really sorry to Jake Heenan and his family, the guy I insulted or tried to insult, and also to my team-mates and to the club, because they must really now be at a point where they’re like ‘here we go again’,” Marler said, on his personal podcast The Joe Marler Show.
“At what point do you go, ‘Yeah, you can say sorry, mate, but just stop f******* doing it? I guess this is the point, is it?
“I’ve been back and forth about the whole situation, of, ‘Oh, it goes on all the time; you should hear some of the stuff’. All this lot. ‘What’s the big thing, and would there be a hoo-ha if his mum wasn’t in hospital?’ Probably not.
“But, actually, we always have a choice, don’t we? We have a choice whether you can actually use this for good, regardless of what the RFU have done in terms of banning or setting an example.
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“It’s about what can I do to make this be useful and good for me moving forward.
“And I guess it is a realisation that I haven’t got long actually being able to play the game left. So I want to use whatever time I have left at the club to actually embrace it and play the game.”
Marler stressed that he did not know that Heenan’s mother was in hospital, adding that his (Marler’s) wife was unhappy with his behaviour, calling him an “idiot”.
Telling off from his wife
“She turned round to me after and she was like, ‘you’re an idiot, aren’t you? You’re just a moron’,” the Quins prop added.
“I went, ‘what do you mean? I thought you’re meant to defend me’.
“And she went, ‘Why am I defending you? That’s not even a funny attempt. Why don’t you just stop doing it? Or, if you feel the need to do it, just don’t bring family members into it.
“‘You never know what’s going on in people’s lives and just because it doesn’t affect you on the pitch doesn’t mean it’s not going to affect other people’.”
Marler is set to miss the final game of his two-match suspension this weekend when Harlequins clash with Sale Sharks at the Twickenham Stoop on Sunday.