COLIN BOAG
Cheat has been the word of the past few weeks, and it’s hard to imagine a more emotive term. The problem with bandying it around is that it covers a multitude of sins and, depending on your point of view, some of those sins are worse than others.
The player who sneakily uses his hand in a ruck to displace the ball and doesn’t get caught, is a cheat, or, if he plays for your club, is just doing what a good 7 does! The player who marginally moves his line just enough to put off the player chasing a kick, but not by enough for the officials to spot it, is also a cheat, or if he’s yours it’s all just part of the game.
Rugby at the highest level is rife with those kinds of cheating, and most of the time we all turn a blind eye to it.
Then there is the off-field cheating, and the two most obvious types are the kind of financial irregularities that cost Saracens so dearly, and drug abuse.
Different people will have differing, but sincerely held, views on which is the more heinous crime.
When back in 2009, Matt Stevens was given a twoyear ban for testing positive for cocaine, I felt – and still feel – very strongly that his elite rugby career should have been ended: predictably I got a lot of stick.
I fully accept that my views are at the ‘Attila the Hun’ end of the spectrum when it comes to drug abuse in sport, but to me it was a far worse offence than over-spending on a salary cap that is out of date, and has historically been poorly administered.
We have people who are involved in Premiership rugby today who have served drugs bans, been forgiven, and welcomed back into the rugby family.
While I’m still uncomfortable with that, I’ve come to accept that it’s just the way the world works, and I’ve learned to live with it.
Where this differs from the Saracens situation is that it’s an individual, making a mistake, and paying a personal price.
In the case of Saracens we now know that their breaches – and they were several – were found, by a man who was the second most senior judge in England for some years, to be reckless and very serious.
However, from my reading he also concluded that there was no deliberate attempt to breach the cap.
Was the swingeing fine, a 35-point deduction, and then another that drove them into relegation, an appropriate response to what they did? If you read some of the supporters’ websites there has been a real mob mentality at play, and it has been deeply unedifying.
The word cheat has been bandied about without too much thought being given to what it actually means, and how much it’s at the heart of the game.
For me, the punishment exceeded the severity of the crime – Sarries will pay the price, but PRL which has handled the salary cap appallingly over the years, gets off scot-free!
After Billy Vunipola sadly went off injured during the Sarries v Racing match, a pundit decided to comment on what a problem that was for Eddie Jones! Vunipola plays for a club side that desperately needs his services, while Jones can plunder any other club when he’s short of a player.
To his credit, when Louis Rees-Zammit went off in the Toulouse v Gloucester match, David Flatman had the decency to start with the problems this might cause the player and Gloucester before mentioning Wales.
Some commentators and pundits need to start showing a bit more respect, instead of thoughtlessly insulting Premiership fans.
After the excellence of the Champions Cup, we move on to the Six Nations, and my hunch is that the rugby in a fair number of the games will be inferior to European level, and even some Premiership encounters.
Inevitably we’ll get all the usual nonsense about international rugby being a step up in class, and in one or two matches that might be the case, but it’ll be an odd Six Nations if we don’t get a lot of dross too.
It will have to be pretty special to match the best of Saracens, Racing 92, Toulouse, Leinster or Exeter on their best form, and on past experience that won’t happen. When we do get the duff matches, expect the pundits to do their bit to try to ‘big’ things up.
Ignore what you’re being sold, and judge it for yourself: is the Six Nations still the pinnacle of northern hemisphere rugby, or has it been overtaken as the game has moved on?
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