Wood waits on citing decision after Williams knock-out

There had been fears the 28-year-old could be cited after his shin connected with Welsh fullback Liam Williams’ head 14 minutes from time as the back-row forward attempted to hack a loose ball towards Wales’ line.

“Tom Wood (England) has received a Citing Commissioner Warning from Maurizio Vancini (Italy) for striking an opponent in breach of Law 10.4 (a) in the 66th minute of England’s Pool A match against Wales at Twickenham on 26 September”, a statement from the governing body read.

Wood used Twitter to express his remorse that Williams – Wales’ must potent carrier in the pivotal Pool A showdown – had been forced off.

Wood revealed he went to Wales’ dressing room after the Rugby World Cup match in an effort to check on Williams, although he did not have the chance to speak to the Scarlets man.

Three yellow cards in the tournament lead to a disciplinary hearing.

Wales defence coach Shaun Edwards indicated they were considering reporting Wood for a potential sanction but the England blindside flanker, while admitting he felt guilty, argued he never meant to hurt Williams.

Wood’s availability is welcome news for England, which could be without key players Billy Vunipola, Courtney Lawes, Ben Youngs and Jonathan Joseph against Australia because of injury.

Liam Williams was stretchered from the ground after he suffered a blow to the head when he appeared to be kicked by Woods.

“The outcome was not something I intended obviously”. Would I have done anything differently? Probably not because the ball was bouncing at my feet and I was at full tilt looking for the ball. “But, as I’ve said, we’ll just have to show the resilience that we’ve shown so far in the competition, dust ourselves off and get on with it”, he said with serious doubts about Amos and Scott Williams. “That’s a huge relief because there’s an element of guilt there”. “It is something we are going to look at, with regards to citing”. I think we will make a comment on that later on. “We did lose one of our best players and in the position that we’re in, we’re quite short (on numbers), so we’ll just look at that later and make a decision”.