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August 30, 2009

Posted on 08/30/2009

What on earth happened?

Stephen Jones, writing in The Sunday Times, is hopeful that rugby's difficult summer is drawing to a close.

"What on earth happened to rugby this August, a month that ended with accusations still flying? The weeks brought a firestorm of revelations and criticism, probably the fiercest barrage for 20 years. This fury can be divided into two roughly equal parts — one half pompous silly-season sermonising and score-settling; the other (largely from inside the sport) ferociously well-deserved savaging in three areas — abuse of hard recreational drugs by Bath players, the feigning of injury using fake blood, and inferior props wanting the scrummage phase to be depowered to take the pressure, literally, from their shoulders.
"Finally, substantially worse than any of the original offences, come the lying, cheating and bullying cover-up machinations by senior technical, administrative and medical figures at Harlequins, leading to the departure of director of rugby Dean Richards, physio Steph Brennan and now, chairman Charles Jillings. And, horribly, there was the deliberate cutting of Tom Williams, the hapless central figure — according to Williams — by a doctor.

"Are the resignations over? Mark Evans, the club’s chief executive, has a proud record in breathing life into two institutions, Saracens and Harlequins, but his stewardship of this issue has been a grisly failure. Both European Rugby Cup, in charge of the fateful Harlequins-Leinster Heineken quarter-final and whose clever strategy smoked out Quins, and the RFU threaten further action. I cannot believe Harlequins will play in the 2009-10 Heineken Cup. They must not."

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