The English rugby team have been labelled "pouty little babies" after their performance in the Rugby World Cup final.
It wasn't the fact they lost the game that caused controversy, but their behaviour after the match.
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After receiving their silver medals, many members of the team removed them straight away, with flanker Maro Itoje refusing to even put the medal over his head at all.
"[They are] pouty little babies," AUT journalism lecturer Richard Pamatatau said about the team on the AM Show on Monday morning.
"Pathetic, stupid, dumb, bad sportsmanship," he added. "They should have just taken it on the chin - they came second."
Pamatatau appeared on The AM Show's panel on Monday together with sports broadcaster Brendan Telfer.
"Think of all the players who went to the World Cup and didn't come home with a medal - even players from France and Argentina, Ireland, Australia," Telfer said. They would have been immensely proud of coming home from the Rugby World Cup with a medal and here's these petulant English kids."
Telfer said the team's behaviour smacked of arrogance.
"They're prats - arrogant prats," he said.
"I couldn't help contrasting the performance of those English players wanting to toss their medals on the ground, with the words of [South African capitan] Siya Kolisi just after the match on Sunday morning, midnight our time, where he spoke about the inspiration of the team, how he'd brought together all of these different players from different races, different languages, different cultures into the Springboks and they were a symbol of hope for his country.
"I thought it was junior Nelson Mandela I was listening to there."
The English team lost the final to South Africa 32-12.
Newshub.
