England prop Joe Marler has again apologised to Bristol Bears flanker Jake Heenan, his Harlequins team-mates and the club following his latest ban.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u00a320,000 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\u2019 genitals in a Six Nations game.<\/p>\n
An independent disciplinary panel took the England international front-rower’s chequered history into account, but also noted that he had apologised to Heenan.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“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?<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n