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."
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