England team manager Martin Johnson says he and his staff are undecided as to whether to appeal Courtney Lawes’ two-game suspension.
The young second row will miss the games against Georgia and Romania after being found guilty of striking Argentina hooker Mario Ledesma with his knee last weekend.
Lawes, who travelled to Auckland for the hearing while Johnson remained with the rest of the squad in Queenstown, received less than the minimum three-game sanction due to his disciplinary record and his remorse but England could yet look to get the ban overturned.
"We'll wait until the guys get back and go from there. I've not got the detail, so we'll see what they say and see where we are with it," was Johnson’s initial reaction.
"It's a fast-moving game, he's dived in to make what he thinks is a try-saving tackle and we thought that any contact with the knees was incidental to him trying to do that in a fast-paced game.
"They (the disciplinary panel) obviously saw it a little bit differently, but let's wait until we see the detail."
Johnson described the suspension as a disappointment but insisted England have enough cover in that area, with Tom Palmer and veteran Lions tourist Simon Shaw joining Leicester’s Louis Deacon in the mix.
"It's disappointing that we lose a player, obviously. A good player for us. We have cover there clearly, but it's disappointing.
"The good thing for us squad-wise is that we're going to need to play players because we can't have guys not playing at all and then asking them to go in and play later games in the pool or hopefully into the knock-out stages."
Lawes is free to play against Scotland in England’s final pool game on October 1.
To see the details of the suspension click here
