scrum blog
ESPNscrum Home ESPNscrum Home
Fan Zone
Rumour Mill
Latest News

RSS feed
Paper Round

All the latest from the world of rugby

FeedbackFeedback

« The heart of the club | | All in the mindset »

October 5, 2009

Posted on 10/05/2009

Quins' fans repaid

Brian Moore mingles with Harlequins fans and judges the ongoing reaction to 'Bloodgate' in The Daily Telegraph.

"The most interesting thing on Saturday at the Stoop was not on the field; although Quins fashioned several clean breaks, they amounted to nothing and of the rest of the game, the least said the better.

"For England manager Martin Johnson and backs coach Brian Smith, there was little of quality to note. No, it was in the bars and in the stands that the real fascination was to be found, because it was there that the heartbeat of the club and the impact of the summer's scandal could be examined.

"I spoke to scores of people about what had been revealed during the past months; few members of the media have bothered to try to examine how the recent scandal has affected the ordinary fans.

"Some thought their former director of rugby, Dean Richards, had been harshly sentenced, but most accepted his three-year ban with regret; not one person condoned the cheating and no one tried to excuse it by pointing to acts of similar nefariousness perpetrated by other clubs. What was universal was the anger at the holier-than-thou condemnations from other clubs and the manner in which their club's trial had been needlessly prolonged and, especially, that this had been done publicly."

FeedbackFeedback

Recent Posts
Categories
Archives
© ESPN EMEA Ltd
espn