Peter Bills reviews a mixed 2009 in The New Zealand Herald.
"Everywhere you looked in 2009, rugby seemed to have problems. The South Africans' reputation was stained by Schalk Burger's eye-gouging on Luke Fitzgerald during a physically brutal Lions tour; the All Blacks lost three times to the Springboks and in New Zealand calls for Graham Henry to be sacked were loud and long.
"Across the Tasman, another Kiwi, Robbie Deans, coaching the Australians, suffered the ignominy of seeing his men lose five of their six Tri-Nations matches. Then they pitched up in Edinburgh and lost to Scotland.
"In Europe, the French got hammered by England, 34-10 at Twickenham, but life was far from rosy for the English. The northern autumn brought defeats by Australia and New Zealand and a realisation for manager Martin Johnson that English rugby's love affair with him was fast ending.
"The English punters' disbelief at the path professional rugby was taking in England was exacerbated by the notorious "Bloodgate" affair at the London Harlequins' club. The ghosts of those crusty old colonels and their batmen who once epitomised the club and its support must have been groaning in their graves as it became clear that, under director of rugby Dean Richards' direction, one of the Quins players, wing Tom Williams, had used a fake blood capsule to make a phoney substitution late in the Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leinster."
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