Jaco Peyper's damning testimony against Ireland fly-half Johnny Sexton

This extensive 36-page document released by the EPCR encompasses the six-hour-long disciplinary hearing and includes detailed testimonies from Peyper and his assistants.

“After the final whistle, whilst waiting on the field for the medal ceremony, and becoming aware of Johnny Sexton (the Leinster player who was not in the Match Squad for the final) taking a position near us and staring at us. I was still standing near the halfway line with my assistants, taking instruction from EPCR’s Match Director, Ben Harries, as to how the match officials’ medals presentation would work.

“I became aware that Sexton was approaching my assistants and I, speaking loudly and angrily. Match officials commonly refer to this type of behaviour as ‘spraying’. I could not hear what he was saying because of the noise in the stadium, but from his body language, facial expressions, and gestures (he pointed at us as he was speaking), I could tell that he was upset. It was clear from his increasing proximity and aggressive demeanour that he wished to confront us and did so intentionally. My assistants were also aware of his hostile reaction, and one [Karl Dickson] reached across to keep him at a distance before he moved away from us and approached a gathering of Leinster players and staff.

“Following our instruction to move across to the medal presentation position, my assistants, the TMO and I became aware that Johnny Sexton had followed us across the field and taken up a position a few metres behind us and to our left. He was with a little boy. As soon as we realized that he had taken up a position behind us and was staring at us, we turned our backs to try and avoid any further confrontation with him.

“Following the award of our medals, my assistants, the TMO and I left the stage and made our way across to the position identified by match manager. We became aware that Johnny Sexton had turned this way too and started to follow us. We decided to leave the pitch over the touchline nearest the tunnel. As we passed the ‘Champions board’ (where the winners normally congregate for a photograph), we kept our heads down and continued to make our way to the touchline to avoid engaging and to prevent a further confrontation.

“There was no further engagement with Johnny Sexton once we had left the field, and I was not aware of any continuation of his behaviour, which had been provocative throughout. I was very pleased that nobody on my team of four reacted.

“I have not received any contact post-match around this matter from Leinster or Johnny Sexton, and also no explanation or apology of any form for this conduct,” concluded Peyper.

The hearing heard that Sexton accepted his conduct in incident 1 was “completely unacceptable” for which he “apologised unreservedly”.

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First of all, we have to say that to play for England you have to be a very good player - but these players, for one reason or another, never quite performed as they would have liked in the famous white jersey.

This team was inspired and partly taken from Mike Cooper's origional blog on RuckedOver.

Yes, he has a cap – only a fleeting one, as a late replacement for Mark Cueto against Australia in 2005 – but he does boast a 100% winning ratio in international colours, so you can’t knock that.

His main strengths were dropping the high ball under limited pressure and getting gassed on the outside.

He became the first player to represent Great Britain in Rugby League and England in Union. His move to union was part funded by the RFU, who were embarking on a strategy of converting some of leagues best talent.

However, Mather struggled to make an impact with Sale and moved back to Castleford in 2000. In spite of his poor form with Sale, Clive Woodward gave Mather his debut against Wales in the famous Grand Slam decider in 1999. However, Mather never played for England again after Wales won the game 32-31, following Scott Gibbs’ superb try.

England, who fast-tracked Burgess into their World Cup squad in defiance of logic, Bath and the player himself each shoulder varying degrees of blame for arguably the greatest cross-code flop in history. We're not saying he was an awful player, but the whole thing was a complete disaster.

The Volcano’ stormed onto the scene for Gloucester, doing something ridiculous like scoring five tries on his debut against Leeds, before qualifying for England on residency grounds. International honours followed, with Vainikolo making his England debut against Wales in 2008. However, he failed to bring his try-scoring form to the international scene and was quickly dropped from Martin Johnston’s squad after winning five caps.

Fly-half Geraghty made his England debut as a replacement against France in the 2007 Six Nations - carving through the French defence to create a crucial try for teammate Mike Tindall and kicking a penalty and a conversion in the 26-18 Twickenham triumph. However, the fact he has fallen into obscurity since, which makes this more of a disappointed selection rather than down to poor performances.

Much was made of the fact that Shaun Perry was an ex-welder when he burst into the limelight during an impressive season with Bristol, and it did make a charming rags-to-riches story. 

But, let’s be honest, he never really looked accomplished in the England shirt. A poor performance against South Africa in the 2007 Rugby World Cup led to Perry being dropped from the 22 by England coach Brian Ashton. He never played again.

The Bristol prop was a solid bloke who anchored the Bristol scrum during that season where they finished 3^rd in the Premiership, in 2006-07, and was rewarded with a call-up to the England squad for their tour to South Africa. However, Crompton was never the most mobile and since he was 34 when he made his bow in international colours, he was practically stationary by the time he put on the England shirt.

Despite the good early promise in his career, he spent most of his time in England colours being turned upside down in the set-piece and being battered backwards in contact.

He packed a punch in the tackle but never really looked comfortable at Test level.

Now Deacon was as tough as nails, but was about as mobile and athletic as the very comfy sofa that I’m currently sat on and offered next to no threat to opponents. Unfortunately, he falls into that category of England players whose best quality was ‘being brave’, which fills you with admiration...but not a whole lot of confidence.

Winters is by all accounts a Bristol legend and an all-around good egg. He was usually a lock but made his international debut on the flank, so that’s where he fits in – and he’s selected for many of the same reasons as his old club-mate Darren Crompton.  Solid bloke, yes, but international quality?  Not by a long shot.

Gloucester stalwart Hazell had the unenviable task of filling the retired Neil Back’s shoes.  We can assume that Robinson’s thought process was, “He’s small, he’s aggressive, he’s just like Neil Back”, but unfortunately it didn’t really work out like that.  Making his international appearances exclusively through 2004-05, Hazell became known as a bit of a penalty machine.

Skirving travelled to South Africa to take the place of the injured Peter Buxton in the full England squad for their two-test series against the Springboks. The back-rower was not involved in the first test, but won his first England cap starting the second test on 2 June 2007, starting in a comprehensive 55-22 defeat.