England prop Joe Marler says he felt like “Eminem in 8 Mile when he chokes on stage with his rap”, after failing to nail his throw into the line-out during Saturday’s defeat to Scotland.
Marler was forced to throw into the line-out for only the second time in his Test career due to hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie being in the sin bin.
Prop Marler failed to throw the ball five metres to team-mate Alex Dombrandt, with Scotland fly-half Finn Russell kicking what turned out to be the winning three points from the resultant penalty.
Speaking about the incident in England’s Six Nations opener, Marler said: “It goes to the nominated person to do that role.
“I just didn’t throw it at the right time. I should have thrown it earlier at Dombrandt.
“Unfortunately, I threw it later and he kept running past the five metres, with eyes of: ‘Mate, why are you not throwing the ball at me?!’
“And I went: ‘I don’t know, I feel like Eminem in 8 Mile when he chokes on stage with his rap’. That’s how I felt.”
Marler, who was speaking ahead of Sunday’s game with Italy, revealed he has been practicing his throwing this week and that his perfect record is now gone too.
“Unfortunately my international record is now done to 50 per cent, because it was at 100 per cent,” said Marler.
“In my third ever Test, against South Africa, away in 2012, Dylan Hartley got sin-binned, I threw it to Geoff Parling in the pod.
“He won the ball, I had a 100 per cent throwing record. Unfortunately it is now down to 50 per cent and I can’t be really smug about that with Joe Gray at Harlequins, saying I have a better throwing record than him.”
Marler was playing against Scotland last Saturday after recovering from Covid-19 for the second time in recent months.
The Harlequins prop said he did not feel the effects too much from this latest bout, but the first one caught him off-guard.
“The first time I struggled, I probably underestimated it a little bit back in the autumn,” said Marler.
“My chest was struggling for a while after that. But this time, back in Brighton, I think from the testing that it might have been the Omicron variant.
“And it’s well known that is slightly milder, and I didn’t suffer as much.”
