Why are we still waiting for verdicts?

PETER JACKSON

When the RFU launched an inquiry into the violent nature of their Five Nations match in Cardiff in 1989, they announced their verdict within 48 hours: the suspension of captain Richard Hill, Graham Dawe, Gareth Chilcott and Wade Dooley.

A notorious incident in Edinburgh the previous season came to a similarly swift if lopsided conclusion. Scotland’s John Jeffrey and England No.8 Dean Richards were given contrasting punishments for taking the Calcutta Cup on a public bashing along Princes Street.

The SRU banned Jeffrey for five months. The RFU took much less of a dim view of the drunken prank and banned Richards for one match. What happened in a pub in Cardiff a week last Saturday night is still under investigation, according to the Arms Park club.

Allegations of ‘appalling behaviour’ against a number of unnamed Cardiff players have been looked into but, more than a week after the event, still no verdict, thereby leaving a vacuum filled by rumour and counter-rumour. Ten days and counting.

How much longer will it take?

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