England manager Martin Johnson has warned his players that they face being dropped from the national team if they continue to concede silly penalties.
Ten England players have been sin-binned in the last four Tests.
And Johnson told BBC 5 Live: "If their performances aren't good enough, and part of that is giving penalties away, then they won't get picked.
"The guys are aware of that and we'll keep hammering away at it because, ultimately, we're here to win games."
Danny Care and Phil Vickery were the latest players to be yellow carded, both being sent to the sin-bin during the second half of the 14-13 defeat to Ireland on Saturday.
Johnson was clearly angered by the incident involving Care, who was punished for a shoulder charge on Marcus Horan just 12 minutes after the scrum-half had come on as a replacement.
The 22-year-old, who has since apologised for the misdemeanour, has been released to play for Harlequins this weekend, but Johnson insisted Care would still be in contention for the Six Nations clash against France on 15 March.
"Danny's decision to do what he did was a wrong decision. He needed to keep himself in the game and not give himself the chance of being penalised and then sin-binned," said Johnson.
"It cost us three points. It was an 11-6 game that went to 14-6. We scored a late try but it could have been the winning try, possibly, but ultimately it wasn't. He understands that.
"Young players occasionally make bad decisions and some older players do as well and it's about eradicating those.
"Danny Care's played about 10 minutes of rugby in the last five weeks so he needs to play. He hasn't started a game since January so the best he can do is go out there for Harlequins."
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