Harpenden's Owen Farrell will learn on Tuesday if he is to miss England’s critical World Cup opener against Argentina - after he was sent off for a dangerous tackle against Wales.

The shoulder of the former St George's pupil came in contact with the head of Taine Basham in the 19-17 success at Twickenham.

He was initially given a yellow card but that was upgraded to red following a video review.

The mid-range sanction for a dangerous tackle is six games and given he received a three-match ban for the same offence in January, on top of five matches in 2020 and two in 2016, it is doubtful he will be treated leniently by the disciplinary process.

Fixtures against Ireland and Fiji complete England’s warm-up schedule for the World Cup before their group campaign is launched with a pivotal group clash with Argentina in Marseille on September 9.

Steve Borthwick now faces the likely prospect of being without his skipper and talisman for the toughest opponents in Pool D, while his participation against Japan, Chile and Samoa are also in question.

His replacement on Saturday was another ex-Georgian, George Ford, and he was instrumental in the fightback against the Welsh.

And he gave his full backing to his fellow alumni from the Sun Lane school.

Ford said: "Owen’s not a player who would intentionally want to do that. We’ll get behind him, he’s our captain and our leader and he’ll be back."

Should he miss a large chunk of the World Cup, Ford could be thrust into the limelight.

His match-winning penalty was only one element of a masterclass in game management and he believes the comeback could be crucial heading to France.

"This win is going to be big for us," he said. "You can’t put a value on stuff like that.

"However you train and whatever scenarios you train, it’s not like it is in the heat of the moment when you have three men in the sin-bin, are points down and under the sticks.

"You can never replicate that and this gives us unbelievable belief, a real solid platform to know what we can do.

"Traditional English rugby is set-piece orientated, so getting on top there to be able to play the game we want to play and we’ll take some real belief from that."