Summer of shame lingers on as clubs get back to work
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."
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