Rugby: England have suspended assistant coach Dave Alred and national fitness coach Paul Stridgeon for Saturday's World Cup game against Scotland.

Alred and Stridgeon were found to have illegally switched balls during England's 67-3 victory over Romania. And following an internal RFU review of the incident, Alred and Stridgeon have been banned from entering Auckland's Eden Park for the Pool B encounter.

England were the subject of a misconduct investigation from Rugby World Cup Limited after they were spotted substituting balls before a number of conversion efforts by Jonny Wilkinson.

Law 9.8.1 states the kicker must convert tries with same ball that was touched down, unless the referee agrees it is defective.

However, England did not consult the match officials before making the switch,with the RFU's investigation finding that Alred and Stridgeon "mistakenly thought that there was an issue with some of the match balls".

The RFU statement continued: "Those team management members took it upon themselves to substitute balls during the match in contravention of both the laws of the game and the spirit of the game.

"The RFU fully accepts that the action of those team management members was incorrect and detrimental to the image of the tournament, the game and to English rugby.

"The RFU has therefore decided to reprimand those team management members, to warn them as to their future conduct and to suspend them from participation in England's next game, the match between England and Scotland. This suspension means that they will not be able to be in the stadium for that match in any capacity."

England manager Martin Johnson added: "It's unfortunate that we have had to take this action but ultimately there was a breach of the laws of the game. But it's happened, some action has been taken and we have to move on."

In response to the action taken by the RFU, the tournament organisers RWCL have opted against taking any further action - although England have been warned over their future conduct.