Hugh Farrelly, writing in The Irish Independent, praises the influence of foreign players in Irish rugby.

"When Thai boxing sensation Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym was produced for the Irish media in Dublin last week ahead of his world title bout with Bernard Dunne, the location chosen for the press conference was ... wait for it ... Jimmy Chung's Chinese emporium.

"This led to the (entirely reasonable) query of why the event was not staged in a Thai-based location and a response along the lines of: "Ah sure, 'tis all the Orient". Quite.

"As a nation, we have no problem spreading ourselves around the globe but are less comfortable when foreigners arrive over to Irish shores (there is little doubt part of the reason we have to vote on the Lisbon Treaty again this Friday is attributable to the misguided notion that a No vote would help control our borders).

"The foreign influx into Irish rugby has proved less unsettling. It began in the early 1990s with the clubs and has increased in frequency and influence as the game has developed over the intervening two decades."

Wynne Gray can't understand the All Blacks' attitude towards young lock Isaac Ross in The New Zealand Herald.

"It's started again. Call it what you like, but the All Blacks' rest and reconditioning programme is on the boil again.

"When developing Test lock Isaac Ross turns 25 late next month, the selectors want him pumping iron somewhere in New Zealand, rather than preparing for the All Blacks' fourth test against the Wallabies in Tokyo.

"They are working hard on persuading Ross that it will be in his long-term interests to increase the power and strength in his 115kg frame, instead of undertaking the five tests and Barbarians match schedule with the All Blacks.

"There are a few weeks to run before the team is revealed but the word is that Brad Thorn, Tom Donnelly, Anthony Boric and Jason Eaton will be the four locks taken on tour while Ross is put on a rehab programme.It seems an odd decision on a number of fronts."

	Jonny Wilkinson is excelling in France © Getty Images

"It's definitely coming back," Jonny Wilkinson says quietly of the form and assurance that once helped him win a World Cup at the death. That same deadly conviction was evident earlier this month when Wilkinson scored all of his new team's 18 points and steered Toulon to a memorable victory over their illustrious opponents, Toulouse, before a crowd of 60,000.

"He made 20 big hits, over three times the tackles expected from a fly-half, and proved as withering in defence as he was relentless with the boot. Despite defeat, his opposite number, Frédéric Michalak, spread his hands wide and said of Wilkinson's return: "It's great for rugby."

"Yet on Saturday, to protect the famously intense Wilkinson from himself, his coach, Philippe Saint-André, started with him on the bench against Biarritz – and Toulon collapsed without him. Wilkinson has reclaimed the aura of a man who could, once more, become just as important to England as he already is to Toulon.

"Having suffered terribly from injury over the last six years, Wilkinson qualifies the praise with a more introspective appraisal of his French resurgence. "It's difficult to know for sure," he cautions. "It's a new scenario and hard to quantify. In terms of progression, the feeling of comfort, I'm getting to where I need to be. But in terms of, 'Am I happy in what I'm doing on the field?' the answer is always 'No.' There is much more I could be doing. If I was playing amazingly I would still say the same. But I honestly mean it when I say I've got a lot more to do here."

Writing on rugbyheaven, Spiro Zavros argues that the Shute Shield Final fully supported Alan Jones’ claim that man of the coaches at work within Australian rugby who don’t know “what skills to teach or how to teach them”.

”On Sunday, former Wallabies coach Alan Jones launched a furious tirade against the coaching regimes at the national and Super 14 levels. There was a great deal of truth in what he had to say. "We are rotten with potential," Jones said. The problem is that "we have lost the momentum towards success and the passion for success".

“Jones identified the lack of requisite skills "to play at the highest level" and coaches who preferred strength and conditioning time to coaching skills because they "don't know what skills to teach or how to teach them".

“The Shute Shield grand final between Sydney University and Randwick vindicated the positive point that Jones made about potential (Ben McCalman and Dave Dennis from the fine Uni pack are in the training squad despite having little or no Super rugby experience), and his criticism of the lack of skills and flair in Australian rugby. We saw Randwick needing a try to win in the last 10 minutes and relying almost exclusively on smashing the ball forward to the Uni try line with one-off hit-ups.”

In his weekly column in the Irish Independent, former Ireland fly-half Tony Ward argues that Jonathan Sexton is this season proving that he does indeed have what it takes to be a “great” No.10.

”He is already more important to Leinster than Ronan O'Gara is to Munster, given the quality (Paul Warwick and Jeremy Manning) in reserve down south. Neither Shaun Berne nor Isa Nacewa possess the fundamentals for out-half. Nacewa is an outstanding broken-field runner, albeit primarily from full-back, while Ian McKinley, though still learning the trade, appears the most promising and next in line to Sexton.

“Sexton too has still a lot to learn and much to prove at the highest level but, encouragingly for Declan Kidney, the last six months has seen him grab his long-awaited Leinster opportunity with confidence and conviction.

“He is learning not to get riled by the opposition, while the quality of his high-hanging 79th-minute restart - chased down by Shane Horgan, Cian Healy and Devin Toner amongst others - highlighted that still-developing appreciation of concentration in a crisis. It is what makes great out-halves great and Sexton has the potential to be just that.”

Writing in the Irish Times, Gerry Thornley argues that the only way that Connacht are going to be saved from the threat of extinction is if they save themselves – as they have "few friends within the corridors of power" at the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU).

”As low ebbs go, Friday night in the Sportsground was pretty grim. For the Connacht players, coaching staff, organisation and supporters, it was a demoralising night. Given where they are and where they’ve been for the last few years, attendances at the Sportsground have been a credit to their support base, but for many of the diehards in the crowd of 2,400-plus, the 30-6 defeat to Ulster was as dispiriting as any they could recall for years.

“Connacht had gone into the game confidently and the crowd were expectant after the win over Cardiff the week before. By rights of course, Connacht should have no business beating the likes of the Blues. Purely in terms of budgets, they probably have no right to beat anybody in the Magners League; Ulster included. They should finish 10th and last every season which, alas, has been their lot for the last two campaigns.

“But that doesn’t stop them dreaming, or, more to the point, believing – starting with the notion of finishing above one of the other Irish provinces and qualifying for the Heineken Cup for the first time. And realistically, Ulster are their nearest Irish targets.”

Chris Rattue, writing for The New Zealand Herald, believes that kicking-dominated union is beginning to suffer in comparison with the 13 man code.

"In contrast, rugby is bogged down, calling on parochialism and patriotism to save it, rather than giving a substantial return for those emotions.

"Four million fans. Yeah right. The union boys may be able to test the codes of advertising standards when making that claim, but only for the World Cup tournament.

"Rugby, the game we have loved for so long, has ground to a horrible halt, mired by scrum resets, breakdown confusion, kicking festivals, officious referees, endless penalties, errors, an inability to properly police or institute an offside line and a cross-hemisphere political rivalry that stymies potential remedies.

"A veteran photographer told me after the recent Auckland-North Harbour match that there was so much forceback kicking involved, he had trouble finding anything to photograph."

Richard Wilson talks to new Scotland coach Andy Robinson ahead of his first Tests in charge in The Independent on Sunday.

"The glance towards the pitch, which is cast in the sharp hopefulness of the late September sun, is one of lingering warmth. His eyes see much out there: exertions stretched and spent, small battles scattered and fought, characters revealed and diminished; all an expression in deeds of what he has come here to say. "It's nice, isn't it?" says Andy Robinson, as though he might be casually remarking about the crispness of his lawn. But he is sitting in a suite high in the sweeping stands of Murrayfield and, for a moment, one of the great warrior spirits of English rugby is lost to himself.

"Such a combative figure, a man so steeped in the gruff certainties of competition that the only definition he seeks is that of winner or loser, seldom grants himself a reprieve from the aggressiveness of his instincts. There is, though, something serene to Robinson, a kind of reassurance or understanding. He has just left a roomful of rugby correspondents after the first of the regular informal briefings he intends to hold as Scotland's head coach and, three months into the job, there is no air of a man still searching for meaning or confirmation.

"This, of course, is the place where Robinson came to reassert himself, to find a way to claim back the authority of his coaching ability and, crucially, to affirm again the sense of himself as an emphatic man of principle and conviction. That was with Edinburgh, the club he took charge of two years ago and guided to fourth then second, their highest ever finishes, in the Magners League. Now, the challenge that again demands so much of his awareness, so much of himself, is to achieve the same progress with Scotland."

Eddie Butler, writing in The Guardian, believes that the Ospreys' victory over Glasgow has reaffirmed their Heineken Cup credentials.

"This was going to be about kicking, which I am sure you would have found riveting. I had this little log worked out, a grid-map of who was kicking from where to where at Firhill, the home of Partick Thistle, perfect for the experiment because of its crown‑green slopes and its narrowness, local conditions that would highlight the contrast between Glasgow and the Ospreys in the their Magners League encounter on Friday night.

"That was the idea, but what began as a rather dry investigation into kicking ended with a thorough appreciation of the Ospreys. It's just that on Thursday, placed on the spot in this mighty organ's very own Heineken podcast, I seemed to blurt out that the Ospreys, in defiance of all the evidence thus far and in line with no logic, would be H Cup finalists.

"My well-intended kicking map had begun to look like the sketch of Jim Furyk's swing we commissioned at the Open golf one year, a blur of lines, a porcupine with split ends, that ended up on the spike, as they say in the porcupine world, the cutting-room floor, the bin."

James Haskell opens up to David Walsh about Stade Francais and calendars in The Sunday Times.

"When Max first called to ask about the calendar, James Haskell’s instinct was to say no. Barely a week with his new club Stade Français, he didn’t need to pose virtually naked. But Max Guazzini, the club’s owner and his boss, is persuasive and Haskell hadn’t set up home in Paris’s 17th arrondissement to say no to every new experience. So he played for time.

"What he knew about the calendar was this: it was the biggest seller in France, each year a different renowned photographer took the pictures, it was massively popular with the gay community and with young and not-so-young women. If he said yes, Haskell would play into the hands of those who see him as a glamour boy with a weakness for off-the-field distractions. He could hear them tut-tutting: “Haskell, he’s only started in Paris, and he’s done this.” But these people, what did they mean to him? Since when was he going to live his life to satisfy them? In any case, their disapproval was insatiable.

“Max,” he said, “it would be an honour to appear.” His fellow England internationals Simon Shaw, Tom Palmer and Olly Barkley, and the Scottish internationals Hugo Southwell, Thom Evans and Max Evans, also said yes. They took him to an industrial part of Paris and the shoot was done on a rooftop car-park. The photographer was an American who kept screaming: “Chin up, chin down, chin out.”

"Women wolf-whistled from nearby offices and he had to laugh. “What greater commitment can a man show his club,” he thought, “than to stand bollock naked on a rooftop holding a golden rugby ball over his groin?” When the pictures were processed, Max pulled him to one side. “James,” he said, “we’re very impressed. We think you could be the front cover.” And he was pleased. He thought it was unbelievable that with all the pretty boys who play in the backs, they should choose him for the front."

Chris Hewett talks Tri-Nations, Tigers and dissertations with Pumas prop Marcos Ayerza in The Independent.

"The "good cop, bad cop" tradition among rugby's propping community is one of long standing, stretching back at least 80 years to the Louw brothers, Fanie and Boy, who played for the Springboks in an age when self-policing at the scrum was all the rage.

"Today, Leicester are taking it to extremes. On one side of their front row is Martin Castrogiovanni, who famously decked a basketball coach as a means of convincing his mother that he should be allowed to play union instead. On the other? Marcos Ayerza, who spends his spare time playing Bach and Chopin on the piano.

"A highly developed appreciation of classical music is no guarantee of civilised behaviour: Hannibal Lecter was almost as interested in the labyrinthine structure of the Goldberg Variations as he was in his victims' internal organs. But Ayerza is almost too good to be true: an accomplished linguist, he is currently completing a degree in business studies – "It's more difficult for me in English rather than Spanish," he admits, "but I'm looking forward to writing my dissertation" – and is a rugby romantic who does not see the game purely in terms of the money he can make from it. A renaissance man in the Tigers' pack? Wonders will never cease."

If former Springbok centre Brendan Venter's Saracens team are reminiscent of the world champions, so much the better, according to Shaun Edwards in the Guardian.

"South Africa are, after all, the world and Tri-Nations champions, so any coach who has men in important positions who can do what their Springbok counterparts do would be foolish not to use them. The difference at Saracens is that they also have the Venter factor – the steel and resilience that makes them special.

"It may be an exaggeration but the story goes that this week, while England's coaches were worrying that the Saracens captain, Steve Borthwick, might not be fit in time for the autumn internationals, after suffering a rib injury against Harlequins, Venter was wondering whether he could get his man fit and ready for Sunday.

"As I say, it may be an exaggeration, but it does reveal the manner of the man. Venter may be a qualified doctor – a medic, not a scientist or a man of letters – but the way he played as a centre with 17 South Africa caps gave little regard to the damage that might be done to his or his opponent's body. The same applied when he became a coach, first with London Irish and then back in South Africa."

In an exclusive interview New Zealand coach Graham Henry talks with The Independent's Peter Bills about the future of the game and his All Blacks team.

"Henry fears that New Zealand and Australia have most to fear if the game contracts, increasingly becomes largely a kicking dominated affair and people turn away from it because of its lack of entertainment. “Our two countries will suffer most if nothing is done about this. And there are already signs of that in the last couple of years because people are very concerned about this.

“People that have been traditional fans are now questioning the game because of the laws. There is nothing Australia and New Zealand can do about it. We wanted to make the ELVs permanent but we got out-voted.

“But the consequences of doing nothing about this in this part of the world are serious. It is a real problem because we do not have the population numbers in this country. Getting bums on seats is a big challenge, especially in a recession. In the UK, you will sell out a Test match all the time particularly given the close proximity of each country to another but chiefly because of the population numbers."

Writing in the Irish Independent, Hugh Farrelly talks to rising Leinster star Devin Toner.

"He's heard them all before. From "what's the weather like up there?" to "woah, is the circus in town?"to the rather rudimentary Irish observation of "Jeez, you're fierce tall aren't ya?"

"What do you say in reply? "Ah, I'm wearing heels," or maybe you just nod and smile. Devin Toner is well used to pedestrians doing double takes as he strides by and the constant references to his height. None of it bothers him unduly and it cannot be denied that he has put his six feet and 10 inches to good use professionally."

The Rugby Football Union has just published details of its new eight-year strategic plan, Chris Hewett reports in The Independent.

"The Rugby Football Union has just published details of its new eight-year strategic plan, which sets out minimum targets for the Test team of semi-final appearances in each of the next two World Cups, together with four Six Nations titles between 2010 and 2017, including a couple of Grand Slams. The sound of laughter from Cardiff, Dublin and Paris was almost deafening, but the great and good of Twickenham were more immediately concerned with the difficulties of managing their France-based players.

"Rob Andrew, the director of elite rugby, admitted yesterday that precious few of those who crossed the Channel at the end of last season – Riki Flutey, James Haskell, Tom Palmer and Jamie Noon were among them – negotiated contracts with their new clubs that satisfied RFU demands in respect of player release for England duty and medical protocols. Indeed, the only name he volunteered was Jonny Wilkinson, currently winning games single-handedly for Toulon."

A newspaper reader may well have found a solution to rid the game of all aimless punts. Rob Kitson in the Guardian suggests the IRB should try it.

"The best suggestions in life are often the simplest. Many of the finest brains in the world have wrestled with how to improve rugby union as a sport and, as often as not, have ended up making it worse. Fair play, therefore, to Mr Martin McNeill of Richmond, Surrey who penned a short, pithy letter to the Sunday Times last weekend. The last sentence read thus: "I suggest any kick that is cleanly caught by the opposition leads to....a scrum from where the ball was kicked."

"Genius. Well, almost. Mr McNeill missed out six words. If you insert "outside the 22" after "kick" and "the option of" in place of the dots you suddenly have a potential remedy for the curse of excessive kicking, currently causing players and spectators alike major neckache. Think about it. All those speculative hoists and aimless punts outlawed. Scrum-halves and fly-halves forced to abandon the lazy hit-and-hope option. Heaven forbid, some teams might even opt to run first-phase ball out of their own half. Welcome to the new rugby: much like the old, only with the boring ping-pong taken out."

Harlequins chief executive Mark Evans claims, "All sports have their stories" and that ""There are things that go on in all sports behind the scenes." Read his thoughts in the Guardian.

"The Harlequins chief executive Mark Evans says no sport is immune from cheating as his club try to improve their reputation in the wake of the fake-blood injury scam. Evans said athletes will always "step out of line" because of the pressure to win and believes that scandals help generate interest among fans.

"Evans, speaking at the Sports Marketing 360 conference in London, said Harlequins have not lost any sponsors as a result of Bloodgate. Harlequins' main sponsor, Etihad Airways, is in the final year of its deal. "The sponsors have been terrifically supportive ... one event doesn't define an organisation," Evans said. "I suppose it was a test of the relationships. None of our five main partners have indicated they are leaving. It's not signed yet, but we concluded a new five-year deal with one of them yesterday."

Writing in the Sunday Independent, Gavin Rich asks if South Africa's Class of 2009 are the best Springboks side ever.

"Comparisons are unfair, however, as how do you compare John Smit's Bok team with Philip Nel's 1937 tourists, who beat New Zealand in a series after travelling there by ship, playing several provincial games and a series in Australia?

"As this is not a leap year, the relevance of which will become apparent later, we also cannot say that this was the most successful ever season for the Springboks. What we can say with reasonable certainty though is that this era of Bok players is the finest and most successful since 1992 - and a lot of it comes down to the continuity which has been a feature of the last six years."

Watch a game of professional rugby these days and the chances are that you will see a running headbutt, according to Tom English in The Scotsman.

"They're all the rage right now. I've counted a dozen in the Premiership and the Magners League so far this season. If you're a piece of work and you're determined to inflict a bit of damage on an opponent then, unless you're thick, you don't do it with a punch (too easily seen by the referee) and you don't do it by gouging (the penalty, if caught, is far too risky).

"You do it by sizing up a ruck, picking a target and charging in head-first. It can look like an accident when done cleverly. It can look like you just came steaming in with the honest intention of lending your bulk to the ruck, but it is a vicious and cowardly act that is on the rise, big-time."

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Greg Growden believes there is something seriously amiss with this Australian team.

"They seem to have no idea how to string two good performances together. It is a distressing problem that demands a quick fix - otherwise the next World Cup campaign will be as bad as the last.

"We are two years out from the tournament in New Zealand and yet the Wallabies keep saying, ''It doesn't matter, we're getting better,'' despite not having won in the Shaky Isles since 2001. It's poppycock. How can Australia believe they can beat the All Blacks in their home country when they have suffered 10 successive losses there? Then again, these Wallabies are struggling to win anywhere overseas."

Writing for Rugby Heaven, Spiro Zavos lays into the Wallabies following their latest capitulation.

"It's time to bring Berrick Barnes into first five-eighth to run the back line. Matt Giteau is a brilliant individual player (in the mould of Carlos Spencer), and having to control the game rather than playing instinctively puts a straitjacket on his brilliance. Evan Whitton, a great rugby columnist, believes Giteau is a natural outside-centre. I'd like to see him play on the wing in the manner of Wales's Shane Williams.

"James O'Connor, despite his shocker at fullback, made more breaks than any other Wallabies back, and his position should be at inside-centre. As for the forwards, the loose-forward combination of two ''fetchers'' in David Pocock and George Smith, which was so effective against the Springboks, did not work against a well-balanced All Blacks back row."

Move over Dan Carter - the Wallabies have the latest look in rugby undies according to the New Zealand Herald's latest cartoon.

Gavin Henson, the Ospreys enigma, would be much better off playing his club rugby elsewhere, according to Paul Rees in the Guardian.

"At 27, Henson should be in his prime. Instead, he is on a leave of absence, disillusioned, it is said, by a succession of injuries that have made his appearances on the field sporadic since Wales won the 2005 grand slam.

"It seems more an excuse than an explanation. Henson's misfortune is little compared to that suffered by Jonny Wilkinson since England won the 2003 World Cup, But whereas Wilkinson was born to be a professional sportsman, devoting most of his waking hours to rugby, Henson is a freer spirit who gets his satisfaction out of playing rather than preparation or talking about the game.

"The 27-year-old Welshman would have been more comfortable in the amateur era, when the game was part-time and the power of players was measured by the clout they had within a club rather than how many days a week they spent on the weights, even if he would have missed the money."

You can scrub this Wallabies team as Rugby World Cup winners, according to Chris Rattue in the New Zealand Herald.

"There's more chance of waking up to find a decent stadium floating at the waterfront and an Auckland cabbie who knows how to get there than of Robbie Deans' powder puffs lifting the Webb Ellis Cup.

"Saturday night's performance in Wellington was one of the worst transtasman capitulations you will see from an Aussie sports side and their red-faced rugby mob will be having nightmares about it as the flamboyant NRL and AFL hit the high notes."

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Brian Moore insists the International Rugby Board's policy of globalising rugby by simply giving financial support to emerging teams will fail in the same way that overseas aid is doomed to fail without a supplementary policy of self-sufficiency.

"Irrespective of the spin put on this, Argentina's inclusion has little to do with a benevolent desire to see an emerging nation grow. It has taken about 10 years of negotiations and wrangling to approve Argentina's introduction to the 'Cosy Club', containing the founding members of the International Rugby Board.

"...By way of fortunate coincidence, Argentina's rise has taken place as the Tri-Nations format has shown that while it remains a robust tournament, it had become a little jaundiced and required revision to remain popular."

After retiring at 28 and living in Australia for three years, the forgotten man of England's World Cup-winning team has realised there is no place like home. The Independent on Sunday's Hugh Godwin talks to Trevor Woodman.

"Until joining Wasps in the summer, he had spent three years living in Australia, involuntarily tagged as the forgotten man of England's 2003 World Cup- winning team.

"Others were icons: Martin Johnson jacked in playing just when he fancied it and became the national manager; Matt Dawson swapped Twickenham for starring roles on television; Jonny Wilkinson carried on playing when his body allowed, and so on. Woodman was the first of the Sydney heroes to have the decision to retire taken out of his hands, by a persistent back injury a year after the final. Flummoxed and initially depressed by the abrupt end to a flourishing career, at the ridiculously young age for a loosehead prop of 28, Woodman eventually travelled Down Under and got into coaching, ironically enough, at Sydney University."

The house of cards, otherwise known as the Wallabies, collapsed yet again on New Zealand soil last night, writes Greg Growden in the Sun Herald.

"The oh-so-soft Wallabies proved they have no idea how to produce two good performances in a row, wasting the momentum they gained beating the Springboks in Brisbane a fortnight ago when trounced at Westpac Stadium to finish deserved wooden-spooners.

"For the umpteenth time this season, this was a hopeless, unforgivable Australian performance, and everyone, including coach Robbie Deans, who strangely veered away from using attacking replacements when several players had clearly lost the plot, must take the blame for another disgraceful night."

The knives and pens were poised but they had to be stayed after a good performance against the Wallabies, writes Richard Loe in the New Zealand Herald.

"Richie McCaw had a wry smile of satisfaction on his face and he deserved to. He was my player of the night and he took the ball up well and pressured the Aussies and then, in the last quarter, his turnovers and defence were superb when they were pressing.

I heard an Australian commentator saying that McCaw doesn't wield the same sort of influence over a game that he used to. Hooey. He was the most influential player in this match by a long chalk."

Writing in the New Zealand Herald, Paul Lewis insists it is time for the All Blacks to dump Steve Hansen.

"It's good to know Steve Hansen isn't feeling any pressure. It's great, in fact, because it's a prime reason why the All Black forwards coach should be replaced. Flush the dunny and move on, to coin a phrase.

"Hansen's contention last week that he and the All Blacks didn't need any help was risible. Show me a man who doesn't need help and I'll show you a man under pressure; or a defensive control freak; or a corpse."

Ability-wise, there’s little difference between today's squad and 2003 Rugby World Cup winners, so thinks England Manager Martin Johnson. He talks to David Walsh in the Sunday Times.

"Though not yet on the field, Martin Johnson is winning. The proof comes on the page of questions that lies on a table between us at the RFU’s Rugby House in Twickenham: 22 but not one that deals specifically with Danny Cipriani. It is how Johnson would have written them.

"More than a year has passed since Johnson was announced as England manager. There was the usual fanfare, banging out the old tune about the iconic player arriving to save the country. Despite getting to the 2007 World Cup final, the team were a mess. England had been twice hammered by the All Blacks in summer Tests.

"Since coming to the throne, Johnson’s journey with the team has been painstaking; slow, methodical, unspectacular but still giving the impression that he is leading us to a better place."

As the autumn internationals loom, England are facing a crisis in the scrum: what is the future of the tight-five? So asks Paul Ackford in The Telegraph.

"Intimidation comes in many guises. Joe Worsley has it in the authority with which he culls targeted runners. Lewis Moody has it in the reckless, kamikaze-like way he approaches every contact situation on a rugby pitch. Even Steve Borthwick might be said to possess it in the intellectual accuracy with which he can deconstruct line-outs. But the best intimidation of all, the kind that is crucial to all aspirational international rugby teams, the kind that causes palpitations in opposition hearts, England haven't got.

"Consider. Who, from England's front five, frightens you? They're all big and butch-looking. They are all more or less good at their jobs. Yet there is no one, with the possible exception of Simon Shaw, and he is knocking on 37 these days, who plays with a sustained rage that Martin Johnson and Fabien Pelous demonstrated in their pomp, that Bakkies Botha, the wonderful South African lock, still exudes."

Argentina's inclusion in the Tri Nations cannot come too soon for a competition struggling to hit the heights, writes Eddie Butler in The Observer.

"Season after season, the global standard used to be set by the Tri Nations, as daring in its experimentation as respectful of the historical rivalries between South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. Not so this year, as a scrappy, imperfect competition drew to a close in Wellington, with the NZ All Blacks knocking all the promise out of the Wallabies in the dead-rubber contest to avoid bottom place.

"South Africa were clear winners of the annual tournament, but every ounce has been wrung out of the three-way contest and the arrival of a fourth participant cannot come soon enough. Argentina will not be welcomed for a couple of seasons – and they will not automatically arrive as liberators, being disciples of the brutal school of rugby thinking – but they will, at least, give a coherent shape to the Four Nations."

An 18-week ban for gouging has not dulled Northampton's Neil Best's appetite for battle, according to Rob Kitson in the Guardian.

"Twelve months on, consequently, the 30-year-old knows how Dean Richards, Tom Williams and Dr Wendy Chapman feel as they float adrift on the high seas of post-Bloodgate indignation. "If I was to type my name into Google, the first thing to come up would be eye-gouging," Best says, sighing wearily. "Tom Williams is going to be the same. It's going to be blood and Dean Richards. My advice is just to be positive. There's no point beating yourself up about it. You've just got to knuckle down and keep yourself busy. It gave me a lot of mental strength in the end."

"If Richards and Williams require any more advice about coping with adverse public perceptions they should pay Best a visit in his little thatched cottage just outside Northampton. They would find an affable maverick with a keen appreciation of the contradictions and harsh realities of his physical trade. It is the back-rower's firm belief, for instance, that lengthy bans are harder to endure than broken legs or ruptured ligaments."

At London Irish and throughout the Premiership, South Sea Islanders are a potent and growing force. The Exiles' centre Seilala Mapusua speaks to Chris Hewett of the Independent about his countrymen's rise to power.

"It is possible to argue that, acre for acre, Samoa is the most fertile patch of rugby land on earth, and this current Guinness Premiership campaign marks another watershed for a Pacific people who play their national sport in a spectacularly non-pacific fashion. In the decade or so since the first generation of Samoan professionals arrived in these parts – Va'aiga Tuigamala, Pat Lam, Terry Fanolua, Shem Tatupu, Trevor Leota – their influence has grown steadily. Now, for the first time, they have an entire international XV playing in the world's most competitive domestic tournament.

"For this, they can thank their tight forwards. The Premiership has always had its share of Samoan backs and back-rowers – the trailblazers were quickly followed by the likes of Steve Bachop and John Schuster, Isaac Fea'unati and Junior Paramore (who famously drove one rival to remark that he'd hate to get on the wrong side of Senior Paramore) – but props and locks have been scarce by comparison. This season, however, the likes of Fosi Pala'amo, James Johnston and Felipo Levi have materialised to flesh out the front five of their country's England-based pack."

New management has helped to give the impression of a fresh start and for Wasps fly-half Danny Cipriani, writes Owen Slot in The Times.

"For Cipriani, the uncomfortable situation was being acclaimed as a superstar but being lucky to get a game for his club. Instead of exhibiting humility, he went the other way, he knew he was supposed to lead as a No 10, but he misinterpreted leading as bossing. On the pitch, Eoin Reddan, his scrum half, would find him overriding his calls too often for comfort. Off it, his long-term friends found texts and phone calls would not be returned. Others found him increasingly distant, sometimes disrespectful."

England and Wasps flanker Joe Worsley talks to Chris Foy in the Daily Mail.

"The calculation isn't particularly taxing - Joe Worsley joined Wasps when he was 16 and he is now 32, so he's given half of his life to the one club.

"There aren't many professionals around, if any, who can make the same claim. When his sterling service is measured in such stark terms, it is quite a profound fact for the England flanker to absorb."

Former Wallabies captain Andrew Slack insists there is no chance of either Australia or New Zealand taking Saturday's clash in Wellington lightly. Read his thoughts in the New Zealand Herald.

"Both have played the Springboks on their own home soil in the past fortnight and if you think that tells all about what will unfold in Wellington, then I don't know why New Zealand supporters would turn up. The Wallabies played like a team on the rise while the All Blacks played with a most uncharacteristic uncertainty, and that's without even mentioning the lineout.

"It's been an unusual tournament. New Zealand have got out of jail twice and Australia have locked themselves in three times, and while the All Blacks selectors keep shuffling the deck chairs, it seems Robbie Deans and his panel may have eventually worked out who makes up their most effective 22."

The reduction of the salary cap and threat of investigation have created a much more even club game in England, writes Shaun Edwards in the Guardian.

"You could argue that the winning sides tend to be the ones that have generated success rather than bought it and while I don't want to throw stones, it seems less likely than ever that English rugby will spawn a Manchester City-type situation. However, the interest now is to see how this leaner, hungrier model will handle the challenge of Europe when it comes up against Heineken Cup and Challenge Cup teams that have not imposed ceilings on their spending."

Brian Moore has a few comparisons to make in the wake of 'Bloodgate', in The Daily Telegraph.

"European Rugby Cup and its 'process-challenged' independent disciplinary panel are still hiding from uncomfortable questions on Bloodgate and know that the fall-out from unearthing evidence that the Heineken Cup-winning side cheated would be catastrophic – best not go there then.

"Some individuals have unwisely joined in this orgy of double standards. Many a smile met Lawrence Dallaglio's utterances on cheating. Leicester Tigers fans used to have a sweepstake on what minute Wasps would pull the old uncontested scrum ploy when they faced them.

"Moreover, unless Lol is certain his career was taintless he should work privately on the Rugby Football Union investigative Task Force.

"Arsène Wenger's legendary myopia and amnesia concerning his own players' fouls contrasts markedly with his clear view and moral certainty about Emmanuel Adebayor's misbehaviour last weekend."

Rugby is a game in which the laws, although they may be written down, are open to interpretation - so writes Jonny Wilkinson in his latest column for The Times.

"We have all taken those sort of gambles over and over. When they do not come off, you are accused of having bad discipline; when they do come off, you are the hero.

"I could rewind to the weekend just past. My team, Toulon, were winning against Montpellier until the last minute, when they scored the try that stole the victory from us. What if we had gambled differently? In retrospect, if we could have, we should have. We should have spoilt, stolen or slowed down their ball to prevent their try. We should have taken the gambles that might have had us penalised but might also have allowed us to prevent that try.

"But that is how rugby works: it’s about getting as much as you can before you get penalised. That is professionalism."

Legendary All Black Sean Fitzpatrick isn't mincing his words as he lambasts the current crop of New Zealand internationals after their Tri-Nations defeat to South Africa in an interview with Peter Bills in the New Zealand Herald.

"We said before the start, if the All Blacks could win their own lineout ball or they could get field position, it would be all right .

"But in the first half it was just disgraceful; I don't know what they were doing. They trailed 12-1 in the lineouts at halftime. They had no idea where they were throwing it and the Springboks were totally dominating where New Zealand threw it."

"Fitzpatrick did not attempt to minimise South Africa's clear superiority over his own countrymen. "That intercept try by Jean de Villiers was a reflection of the game. The All Blacks were chasing the game whereas South Africa are quite clearly the best team in the world.

"From 1 to 15, they have shown throughout the competition and since the 2007 Rugby World Cup, they have gone on from strength to strength."

The addition of Argentina to the Tri-Nations roster would be a boost to southern hemisphere rugby and is well deserved writes Mick Cleary in The Daily Telegraph.

"This is not the decent thing to do, it is the right thing to do. Argentina finished third in the 2007 Rugby World Cup, their passionate, hard-nosed, edgy rugby upsetting opponents but winning the day. Ireland were seen off, France, too, in an acrimonious third-place play-off.

"Never mind Argentina needing the Tri-Nations, the Tri-Nations needs Argentina. The format has become stale, its cast of characters all too familiar.

"Argentina will inject spice to the tournament, needle also. One of the key details to be thrashed out before the deal is ratified is that the SANZAR unions of South Africa, New Zealand and Australia will have to "actively work" with Argentina to place their best players in an expanded Super 15 provincial competition. Given that it is envisaged a revamped Four Nations would run from mid-August to mid-October, it would probably be impractical to have Argentine players plying their trade in Europe as they currently do. Pity."

Writing in the Dominion Post, Jonathan Millmow catches up with All Blacks great Jonah Lomu as he prepares to embark on his new career.

"Jonah Lomu is turning heads again. The rugby great, kidney transplant patient and father of one was buying tanning oil yesterday for one of the most unlikely sporting comebacks - the Wellington body building championships.

"Two years ago, Lomu tipped the scales at 142 kilograms. On Saturday night, at the 330-seat Memorial Hall at Victoria University, he hopes to be 114kg. The man nicknamed the Black Bus during his 63-test career now has 50-centimetre biceps and will compete against three others in the over-90kg novice section.

Chris Rattue, writing in The New Zealand Herald, believes that the All Blacks have sunk to a new low.

"South Africa are more than worthy Tri-Nations champions while the All Blacks have become embarrassing chumps.

"The Graham Henry era is in serious trouble, again, and even rugby's hopeless romantics Wales, under Warren Gatland, must be licking their lips in anticipation of a historic victory later this year.

"The always faulty, disingenuous theory that losing World Cup coaches, men who ruined their own team in 2007, would somehow be better for the experience was given humiliating last rites in Hamilton on Saturday night. So much for the NZRU's claim that this trio is the dream team.

"The rugby pundits were intent on picking on Springboks captain John Smit leading up to this test, but there are far more important targets for New Zealand much closer to home."

When Eva Peron asked her country not to cry, she had no idea Argentina was going to be so abysmally treated by the rugby world and Sanzar in particular, so says Gregor Paul in the Herald on Sunday.

"The introduction of Argentina would be a fresh challenge; a new place to travel; a new style of rugby to counter. It would also lessen the exposure to both South Africa and Australia, as Argentina's arrival would pave the way for each team to play the other three twice.

"And there is also a feeling among the players that the time is now for Sanzar to take definitive action. This whole sorry episode could go on forever if no one takes a risk.

"It's a bit like having a baby - there never will be an ideal time. You just do it and cope. That's the key to the Pumas."

	All Blacks captain Richie McCaw reflects on his side's Tri-Nations defeat to South Africa in Hamilton © Getty Images

"The two things that will ensure I remember this match for a long time to come are watching Francois Steyn bang over three kicks in succession from the wrong side of halfway and the most lop-sided halftime lineout statistics imaginable.

"What Steyn did was quite remarkable but equally staggering was the All Blacks inability at the lineout.You can throw all sorts of cliches around but the simple truth is you cannot expect to compete with a team like South Africa, who put so much pressure on you with their kicking game, if you have a dysfunctional lineout."

Former Harlequins director of rugby Dean Richards bares his soul in his first major interview following the 'Bloodgate' scandal. He talks to David Walsh in the Sunday Times.

"When asked about the future, he says he doesn’t know what he will do but he needs a little time. “There is still a part of me that is angry about things that have gone on. I need to let the dust settle. People ask me, ‘Will you come back to rugby?’ To come back from a year out, it would be hard but you’d have a good chance. Two years, you are dead and buried. If I find something else that works for me, I won’t come back because this is not the game I signed up to 10 or 15 years ago.”

"...“People have said to me the biggest mistake I made was in choosing the wrong person to substitute. In some respects they’re right but I shouldn’t have done it. Of course the way we did it, the manner in which we did it, wasn’t well thought out. But we shouldn’t have done it, it was wrong. It’s something that other head coaches and directors of rugby have done during their careers. I honestly don’t believe you would have got through a Premiership weekend last season without it happening once.”

It has been sniffily dismissed by English and French clubs as being too easy, but there is much to admire in the Magners League, writes Eddie Butler in the Observer.

"The achievements of Leinster and Munster in the Heineken Cup took some of the heat off the tournament that fills in the weekends between European rugby – the Magners League. For many a season, the clubs of France and England rather sniffily said how easy the Irish and the Welsh and the Scots had it, being able to caress the best Celtic players through the calendar while they, the grands seigneurs, had to spill their blue blood weekend in, weekend out.

"Of course, how much blood – blue, red or fake – was actually lost on the playing fields of England also helped to reduce the condescension. But there's no escaping the feeling that the Celtic league remains cider to the porter of England.

From all accounts Springbok coach Peter de Villiers is happy to embrace the thoughts of his senior players before he decides the appropriate strategy, writes Wynne Gray in the New Zealand Herald.

"Whatever the state of collaborative interplay between de Villiers, his staff and senior players, something has been working for the Springboks. They have beaten the Lions and so far in the Tri-Nations have been beaten just once, last weekend by the Wallabies.

"It has been some journey for the 51-year-old coach who grew up in the apartheid era when he suffered some unpalatable treatment.

"He and his daughter were chased out of a park by security guards because of their colour and under the distasteful Group Areas Act was relocated in the Cape. By all accounts a handy halfback, de Villiers chose to remain with a Coloured club during his playing days. He has fought for his rights and battled against prejudice throughout his life."

It may soon be the tenth anniversary of his professional debut, but the Scotland full back says he is getting better with age, writes Lewis Stuart in The Times.

"Even though he is 31, Paterson says that under the coaching of Malcolm Fairweather, the Scottish Institute of Sport’s sprint specialist, he is quicker than he has ever been. As long as he feels he is getting better, then his decade in the game, breaking both the Scottish caps and scoring records — 95 matches and scoring 738 points — is a huge benefit to both club and country.

"Speaking at the launch of an Edinburgh club discount offer for those who buy their tickets in advance, Paterson was happy to contemplate the tenth anniversary of his first professional match, and keep planning for the future."

November should be a better month for the northern hemisphere countries but Australia are showing World Cup-winning potential, according to Shaun Edwards in the Guardian.

"Listen carefully and you might be able to hear the World Cup clock ticking. As of Wednesday, kick-off for New Zealand 2011 was precisely two years away and those 24 months are going to rush by.

It may seem a while since South Africa left Paris with the Webb Ellis Cup, but from here on most coaches will be working against the clock and now is as good a time as any to look at the work in progress. And I don't mean on the stadiums.

Barring Dunedin, that seems to be going fine. However this weekend take a look at the current world order, especially as the champions play the All Blacks in Hamilton. No1 versus No2, and obvious World Cup favourites if only because they are playing at home."

Writing in the The Telegraph, former England international Brian Moore queries the ERC’s handling of ‘Bloodgate’.

"I am a former captain of Harlequins. I am also a friend of Dean Richards. He lied and cheated, his punishment was harsh but deserved. Quins were rightly punished and had they been banned from this season's Heineken Cup they could not have complained.

“I make the above statement because I have had an agenda over the 'Bloodgate' affair – I want justice to be done properly, all the facts and actions of all the parties to be known and all outstanding questions to be answered.

“However, in assisting Blackett's inquiry it is interesting that ERC stated after their last meeting that they had authorised only relevant evidence to be passed, when appropriate, to Blackett. Given ERC's refusal to answer serious questions about its part in this affair and the way its disciplinary panel allowed judgments to be released on different dates and to contain selective and damaging material, I and many others had doubts about this being done properly.”

The New Zealand Herald's Chris Rattue suggests a glamorous makeover for Kiwi 'second-fives'.

"Second five, to use its short form, has been the poor relation for too long.

"It's the LA Airport of rugby positions, a hectic mishmash of a place where people move with confused urgency and empty hearts, hoping desperately that Lady Luck ensures they reach their next destination and quick. Players must feel that second five is a transit lounge to nowhere. Kiwi kids put posters of first fives on their wall, and the ones of second fives under their bed.

"Hardly anyone seems to want to specialise at No 12, even though the career prospects are excellent through lack of competition. First and foremost, second five needs to cut itself adrift from first five. A name change is in order. New Zealand rugby should drop the second five and call it inside centre, like the rest of the world does.

"A problem for second fives is that the job description sounds second-rate. Our second fives appear as blokes who weren't good enough for the far more authoritative roles that are suggested by the tags first and centre. Second five-eighths is for the losers, the way the old traffic cops were people who couldn't get into the police force."

Peter Bills, writing in The Independent, ponders the future of the miss-pass as an attacking weapon in the modern game.

"The miss-pass: key to opening up rugby's modern day defences or an attacking liability?

"Time was, when the miss-pass was an obviously viable, indeed valuable part of an attacking team's armour. Throwing the ball out wide, missing perhaps two players to surprise the defence, was an exciting option for the team in possession looking to make serious inroads into a defence.

"Yet modern day defences have rendered this tactic far less attractive. The reason is obvious: in the modern game, the respective back lines are invariably lined up opposite each other, man on man, with space at an absolute premium. Very often, if the rush defence is employed, that minimal amount of space and time is restricted even further.

"That results, all too often, in midfield players taking the safety-first option and going into contact to recycle the ball. Sometimes, it can take nine or ten such phases even before the first chink of space opens up in the defence."

Australia's Tri-Nations victory over South Africa was Robbie Deans' finest hour as a Test coach, a magnificent vindication of his patience, authority and skills, writes Chris Rattue in the New Zealand Herald.

"Deans is only warming up with the Wallaby team, but even those of us who gladly admit to being his strongest admirers also had to concede that he was in desperate need of a confidence-boosting result in Brisbane.

"Deans' young side delivered in spades, rampaging all over South Africa by the end, as much through enthusiasm as outright Test skill. The truth for South Africa is that they were taken apart by a team with too many test newcomers and unproven performers to have won in this manner."

To discount Eddie O'Sullivan as yesterday’s man is to discount the single-most influential figure in Irish rugby over what has been a truly momentous decade, writes Peter O'Reilly in the Sunday Times.

"There’s a scene in Eddie O’Sullivan’s just-published autobiography Never Die Wondering which perfectly illustrates the precarious existence of the professional sports coach. It’s late one night in April and O’Sullivan is sitting alone in his one-room apartment in Boulder, Colorado, surfing the net for speculation on Ian McGeechan’s Lions squad, due to be announced the following day.

“I will admit to a wistful thought that it could have been me striding into that Heathrow hotel to announce my selection,” he writes. “Instead, I faced the more mundane business of haggling over the price of a rucking net and seeing if, perhaps, I could book a meeting room in Charleston free of charge.”

"How are the mighty fallen. When he returns to the US next month, O’Sullivan will be preparing coaches for an ‘A’ team tournament involving Canada, Argentina and the Eagles. That’s ‘A’ for anonymous. The highlight of the season is the back-to-back, do-or-die World Cup qualifiers against Uruguay in Montevideo and a venue yet to be decided. Should the Eagles qualify, they’ll end up in the same pool as Ireland. “Someone up there is having a joke at my expense,” O’Sullivan quipped this week."

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Brian Moore insists that ERC has to stop acting as a loose association of amateurs meddling in a professional world.

"Unfortunately the role and conduct of the governing body, the ERC and its independent judicial process, cannot be consigned to history because other players and their clubs are inevitably going to face ERC justice (another oxymoron).

Those people who say that all of this scrutiny of the ERC is a smokescreen to deflect attention from Quins could not be more wrong as it is the only thread that is common going forward; it is therefore of the greatest importance that ERC now deals with these matters immediately.

Questions in this column have gone unanswered in spite of them being repeatedly put. Grown up and professional bodies do not refuse to answer legitimate inquiries, especially ones that echo what is being said by the ordinary supporter of the game in which the organisation has a major role."

As Bath's forward adapts to life outside rugby he finds his business with former team-mate Mears and Brazilian Jujitsu are proving good props in rehabilitation. Hugh Godwin speaks to Matt Stevens and Lee Mears in the Independent on Sunday.

"I've watched two live rugby games since my ban. One was the first Lions Test in South Africa, and the other was last weekend at Bath, a pre-season game. It was awkward and difficult and heart-rending to watch – and I probably won't do it again. But it also showed me how much I want to play again, and be healthy when I do it. Ultimately my goal is to come back and play at the highest level, and that's what I've got to focus on. I'd be lying if I said I didn't doubt that on a couple of occasions but I don't think I could go on without giving it one more go. There's not really anything in my way except not having played for a couple of years, and I've been out before for a year with a shoulder injury. It's probably good for my body."

Rugby is in the spotlight as never before, but the powers-that-be should beware draconian judgments, writes Eddie Butler in the Observer.

"The summer showed justice in rugby, be it the International Rugby Board finally ruling on the armband protest of the Springboks – Oxymorongate: Justice for Bakkies – or the ERC's damning of Deano, moves with solemn and aching slowness. But never has a statement been more swiftly retracted than Regional Rugby Wales'. Damn you, Lewis, you're a bast... baster of the cogs of reconciliation. Bless you, sir."

Martin Johnson’s 11-match reign as England’s team manager has been pronounced free of any of the abuses contained in the Harlequins’ fake blood scandal, according to Stephen Jones in the Sunday Times.

"Johnson’s England were rigorously examined by a Rugby Football Union investigation for any evidence of feigning injury, including the use of fake blood and similar scams.

However, so determined are the RFU to uncover any abuses in their own history, they are prepared to go back to the turn of the century to investigate all games played by England and the England A team, now called the Saxons.

They will also widen the investigation to take in any suspicious instances of cheating, not just blood-bin episodes. And as a senior RFU figure said on Friday, they will “find out if there are other forms of cheating in the game we don’t even know about yet”.

The RFU insist that they may take retrospective action against any individual they find to have broken rugby law. They will grant immunity to anyone prepared to speak out on instances of feigned injury and similar abuses but could act if they find evidence from other means. All suspicious cases will be referred to Judge Jeff Blackett, the RFU disciplinary officer."

Allegations the England team have faked blood injuries are the top priority for the Rugby Football Union task group's investigation into the Bloodgate scandal which begins this week, writes Paul Ackford in the Daily Telegraph.

"According to RFU sources, Chairman Martyn Thomas instructed Rob Andrew, the RFU's elite director of rugby, to contact Johnson to see if he was in any way involved.

"Thomas got on to Rob and told him to get hold of Martin Johnson," a source said. "Thomas wanted a straight 'Yes' or 'No'. He made it clear that if the answer was 'No' and the task group turns up evidence of cheating then Johnson will be hung out to dry. Rob made the call and received confirmation from Johnson that nothing has happened on his watch."

"The exchange is an indication of how seriously the RFU are taking Bloodgate. Those who have seen Quins' internal report, which was presented to Blackett by Quins' interim chairman, Malcolm Wall, two weeks ago, confirm allegations involving England go beyond feigning injuries to force uncontested scrums, or the faking of injuries to allow props back on to the pitch."

If you feel unsure exactly what rugby union stands for, or indeed what the ethics are in the sport, then fear not because enlightenment will soon be upon us. Owen Slot writes in the The Times.

"All will be revealed at Twickenham on September 23. There, the RFU will explain what the core values of the game are by launching its aptly titled Core Values Programme. There are five core values. One is “Respect”, but the remaining four are closely guarded.

But from September 23, all five will be the subject of a communication and education campaign in clubs, big and small, up and down the country. They will appear on beer mats and in team changing rooms, online and on the quotes sheets of England players past and present. They will be the new stars of the game.

And no, they have not just been rustled up as a ray of sunshine to calm the summer deluge; they have been a work in progress for 18 months."

Rugby could take a lesson from the fraternal five-tackle-kick code where sides are allowed 10 interchanges during a game, according to Wynne Grey in the New Zealand herald.

"These days an All Black test is a 22-man game with a seven-man rack of substitutes to cater for temporary injury, fatigue or as the Lions found out in one of their recent tests against the Boks, replacement when one of their props is a dud. Once the laws were amended to allow substitutes, they started to be bent even more.

"...The levels of concern about bloodbin substitutions rose so much a few years later that officials did not believe All Black lock Norm Maxwell was being replaced because of a torn scrotum. The ref almost needed reviving after his request to check the injury."

The phone lines have been busy in Rugby Football Union offices this week as club officials up, down and across the country have rung in with examples of alleged malpractice. Not many have been in Dean Richards' category, writes Paul Ackford in the Daily Telegraph.

"One RFU employee told of a call he took from a club member concerned about a scam which is occasionally perpetrated in the so-called Community Game, the level at which vast numbers of amateurs participate.

"These are matches with the minimum of officials, where it is often difficult to find 15 fit players for a team. Apparently, here, if a player has been sin-binned before half-time, it is not unknown for a team-mate to swap shirts with the miscreant during the interval so that if he transgresses again the referee, acting on the number on the back of the shirt rather than visual recognition, will be conned into issuing a separate, second yellow card rather than a red.

"Another ploy, again documented in RFU disciplinary circles, is for a player to pretend to be someone he is not. This sometimes occurs where an individual has to appear before a disciplinary tribunal as a result of something which occurred in a game, only for the club to discover that they had failed to register said player. Rather than risk possible points' discussion for the omission, the club sends another properly registered team-mate to take the rap."

In his column in The Guardian, Wasps coach Shaun Edwards says that while he is angry with Dean Richards, he is more upset with those who have rushed to pass judgment on the game of rugby and those involved in it in light of ‘Bloodgate’.

“Make no mistake, rugby is under the microscope. Rightly or wrongly (and I believe wrongly) we are seen as a bunch of potential cheats and, with the momentum these things acquire, we will soon understand how footballers feel when their every indiscretion is monitored.

“The summer has been quite a journey. From the highs of spending two months with a remarkable group of men in South Africa playing against the world champions, when the Lions were lauded and returned heroes despite losing the series, to the current lows when a former Lion is (rightly) virtually drummed out of the game.

“I'm angry. Angry at Dean Richards for putting rugby in this position and even more angry at those who assume, on the evidence of one case, that you only have to look in any rugby dressing room to find capsules of fake blood and that rugby is a game running out of control. They won't and it isn't despite the evidence as to how it happened five times at one club in four years.”

In The Times, David Hands argues that while rugby’s reputation has been damaged by a summer of shame, it’s not all doom and gloom ahead of the new season.

“Rugby creeps back out tonight from under the stone to which so many have consigned it. So many and varied have been the blots on its landscape this summer — drugs, “Bloodgate”, gouging — that you would be forgiven for thinking there was no health left at all. The start this evening of the Guinness Premiership in England and the Magners League in the other home unions will indicate that is not the case.

“The picture is not one of unremitting doom and gloom. Anyone returning from the Lions tour to South Africa less than nine weeks ago felt invigorated about the prospects for this British season, their optimism heightened by the success of the Springboks in the Tri-Nations that they could wrap up in Brisbane against Australia tomorrow.

“The massive turnover in the playing personnel of the 12 Premiership clubs adds to the unknown quantity of the 2009-10 season, while six of those clubs have also undergone significant changes on the administrative side.”

Writing in the Irish Times, Gerry Thornley examines how the introduction of top-four play-offs might change the way the Magners League’s finest approach this year’s competition.

"The English Premiership put its best foot forward this weekend despite the sordid and lingering whiff of Bloodgate and the Bath drug scandal, not to mention a flight of Wild Geese-like proportions to France.

"There, they have already played four rounds of an over-crowded season in the Top 14, which at times resembles a circus, with 217 non-French registered players and where Racing Metro pay Sebastien Chabal €1 million per year. The rugby’s actually been a pretty lousy whistle feast too.

"To comparatively little fanfare, and over-shadowed a tad on the weekend that’s in it, the Magners League kicks off, the same league that provided the bulk of the Lions squad (and no less than 10 of any of the three starting Test sides), three of the last four Grand Slam winners, three of the last four Heineken Cup winners and the last five Triple Crown winners (yes, five!).

"This season, its ninth, the league is liable to be tougher to win than ever, or easier – depending on your viewpoint. For the first time, and not before time, there will be top four play-offs to decide the champions."

Peter Bills, writing in The Independent, is disgusted by Harlequins' inclusion in this season's Heineken Cup.

”There is no longer anyone in professional rugby willing to uphold any longer the cause of right over wrong. A sport once renowned for its impeccable standards of behaviour and discipline has sunk into the trench where some other sports, once derided by rugby as lesser species, have resided for so long. How the mighty have fallen.

“The stench from the trench has been hugely magnified by rugby's behaviour in the light of blatant cheating by Harlequins. But what is worse is the pitiful, cowardly response of ERC, the organisation charged with running what was once known as European rugby's premier tournament.

“No longer. The Heineken Cup can now be called the Cheats Cup, because Harlequins have been cleared to continue playing in the tournament. Convicted, confessed cheats allowed to play on in a major tournament which they tried to ridicule and destroy by their actions? You just couldn't make this up.”

After a break that began with a punch-up and is ending amid the most shocking – and ongoing – cheating scandal, The Independent's Chris Hewett looks at how rugby is picking up the pieces.

"If there is any good news, it is that Premier Rugby, the organisation charged with administering the vast majority of top-flight club activity in England, has played something of a blinder in recent days. It led the way on righting the suppurating wrong of uncontested scrums – another area prey to naked cheating – by pushing for expanded replacements' benches and establishing the principle that any side failing to field a full front row at any point during a game should continue with 14 men. It also argued successfully that doctors from both teams be permitted to inspect a blood wound before a substitution takes place. Had such a system been in place last April, the sport would have been saved an awful lot of trauma."

Dean Richards’s reputation takes a further battering today with the publication of the latest judgments in the “Bloodgate” affair, writes Mark Souster in The Times.

"It is a damning indictment of the former England international, who resigned in disgrace last month. It suggests that Richards, the former directory of rugby, was ultimately responsible for the whole sorry saga.

In the judgment, one of four made public after the appeal hearing 16 days ago, the panel make reference to its concerns that Richards was not telling the truth. It offers sympathy for Williams and Dr Wendy Chapman, the match-day doctor who, Williams alleges, cut his mouth with a scalpel. The judgment says both were put under intolerable pressure by Richards."

Dean Richards faces a damning judgment on his handling of the 'Bloodgate’ affair according to Paul Kelso in the Daily Telegraph.

"In the judgments, details of which have been disclosed to Telegraph Sport, the ERC appeals committee declares that Richards abused his position, orchestrating a deception and subsequent cover-up and placing huge pressure on those under his authority.

"Richards’s defence is believed to be that the cover-up was motivated by a desire to protect the reputation of club doctor Wendy Chapman, accused of cutting wing Tom Williams in order to conceal his use of a fake-blood capsule in a Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leinster last April.

"The judgment is understood to reveal that the only reason Harlequins avoided expulsion from this season’s Heineken Cup was evidence from chief executive Mark Evans that he was not aware of the scale of the cover-up until Aug 3."

So systematic 'cheating' may have been going on for some considerable time in the higher echelons of domestic and international rugby. Of course it has, insists Brendan Gallagher in the Telegraph.

"Of course being rugby, it is dressed up a bit with a kitbag full of euphemisms and normalised with large dashes of humour which all suggest a quasi-acceptance. But the subject of cheating – breaking and/or bending the rules – dominates many lively post-match inquests at the bar. And press conferences for that matter. For too long now we have chosen to view the game we love through a Nelsonian eye.

"There are – pause for the customary knowing chuckle and shrug of the shoulders – the so-called 'black' arts of the front row, not to mention 'canny' gamesmanship and ' getting your retaliation in first'.

Many goalkickers, as a matter of course, nick a couple of yards for long-range efforts, shirt-tugging is rife as is blatant obstruction and lazy runners, hands in the ruck, preventing release, gouging, scraping, handbagging, offside, deliberate knock on, not straight. And so on. And that before you even get onto the thorny subject of replacements, players being told to "Go down" and blood substitutes."

Writing for Rugby Heaven, Spiro Zavos insists the Wallabies have some reason for hope as they prepare to take on the Springboks in Brisbane.

"De Villiers might be rugby's most diverting or annoying sideshow but the main game for the Springboks is that someone is coaching and selecting the side brilliantly. Great success is being achieved for a side that is immeasurably better than the team that won the Rugby World Cup in 2007. This season there has been a victorious Test series 2-1 against the British and Irish Lions, a clean sweep of their three Tri Nations Tests in South Africa, and, on Saturday, a decisive and well-planned victory over the Wallabies at Perth. The scoreline of 32-25 was close only in the way a person is close to a cliff as he plummets down off it."

After gory headlines and off-field rucks players are under intense scrutiny, but Cipriani and Co can lift the gloom, writes Hugh Godwin in the Independent on Sunday.

"Next Friday evening in Stockport and Cardiff, Galway and Glasgow, four boots will hoof four oval balls into the late summer skies, a host of grasping hands will fight for possession, and a new season will be launched. After months of courtroom rucks and horrendous headlines, the real rugby will break out. Oh, blessed relief.

The Guinness Premiership and Magners League are about to kick off with one new team – promoted Leeds Carnegie – in the former and the shining light among the Celts last season, the Cardiff Blues, housed in a spanking new stadium. The Heineken Cup will follow on in October. Hmm. There's a theme in the competitions' three sponsors. Please consume your rugby responsibly?"

Rob Andrew, the Rugby Football Union's director of elite rugby, is determined not to see the pressure of the modern era hijack the game's values. He talks to Duncan McRae in the Guardian.

"Professional rugby was inevitable and the right way to go. But you begin to ask whether there was an element of self-policing with regard to those values in the amateur game," he said. "Maybe we've got catching up to do in reminding people that, yes, there is a lot of money and a lot at stake in winning World Cups and Heineken Cups. Those pressures weren't there in the old days. But we've got to make sure they don't hijack our values.

"There is a bottom line because there is a lot of investment from people in the game and this brings new challenges – and we're now seeing some people fall in the face of those challenges."