Jeff Probyn column: If you want to hear a racist rant listen to Phil Bennett

Joe MarlerWhat a surprise! 's discipline hearing against saw him plead guilty, was given a ban and a fine and everybody is happy. Well, not everyone.
If, as some have suggested, Marler was guilty of racially abusing another player rather than an ‘off the cuff' childish insult in the heat of the moment, there are many questions that need to be answered.
First, why didn't the referee do anything at the time? Marler's comment was made right in front of referee Craig Joubert. In fact Marler was so close that Joubert's microphone picked up his comment that started this saga.
Surely, it is the referee's duty to punish any acts of misconduct on the field of play, including verbal abuse of any kind and yet Joubert did nothing.
As far as I am aware, neither the committee nor World Rugby have taken any action against the referee for failing to deal with Marler's comment at the time. Yet, for an act deemed so serious as to require World Rugby to overrule the Six Nations and  intervene a number of weeks after the event, to then not even issue a clarification as to the duty of a referee in similar cases during a game, seems rather remiss of them.
And add to that the fact Marler wasn't cited for the remarks.
Another question, why if it was racial abuse that took place rather than banter, was the eventual punishment so trivial? I ask this, particularly, as it had been accepted as banter by Samson Lee and Welsh coach , only then to be overturned by the WRU.
A two-match ban and a fine that equates to a very small percentage of what Marler earned and will earn from his part in 's first Grand Slam since 2003 (and this summer's tour) appears at best lenient.
Apparently, World Rugby sought a way of dealing with this matter that would cause the least possible repercussions for all involved. The charge of misconduct made it easy for Marler to plead guilty in the knowledge that his reputation would rightly not be sullied by allegations of racism. It also enabled World Rugby to issue a shorter ban than if they had pursued the more serious charge.
The WRU would have taken some solace from the fact that Marler received a ban although I am not holding my breath in waiting for them to ban any of the players or indeed fans who have consistently abused the English for many years.
Looking at how this whole incident has played out, my view is, did the WRU and World Rugby pursue the charge against Marler because he made the comment, or was it because people off the field heard it?
If as a point of principle – because Marler made an abusive comment – then there are an awful lot of other cases for World Rugby to deal with given the amount of abusive comments seen (if not heard) being made by players during slow motion replays of various incidents.
One wonders what are the odds of the WRU or World Rugby removing Phil Bennett from their Halls of Fame for his infamous pre-match diatribe against the English in 1977 (still available to download) which has gone into the folklore of the game.
Why was that acceptable back then?
If pursued only because it was heard by a wider audience – rather than just the immediate players – and so could be deemed to be damaging to the sport as a whole, it would show both the WRU and World Rugby to be shallow in hounding Marler purely to placate a narrow-minded minority. After so much has been written and said about this incident, the final outcome can only be described as disappointing for all, including the game itself.
The news that are to install the third artificial pitch in the is a concern. Although and have similar pitches, it is still relatively early days for this new generation of artificial surfaces.
All weather surfaces have many advantages, from increased play time to lower maintenance and further uses of the pitch as a venue for all sorts of activities. But they also have some downsides.
The older versions caused a number of player welfare issues from minor burns through to major ligament damage and were very different and difficult to play on.
Modern artificial surfaces are much more like a natural grass pitch in terms of texture and seem to have solved the burn issue at least, but they are still not the same, as anyone who has played at Saracens and Newcastle will tell you.
All artificial surfaces have a different ‘bounce' to natural pitches and have grip issues that can cause ligament damage as they hold the foot to the floor, passing any pressure through to the soft tissues surrounding joints.
The newer surfaces have only been around for a relatively short time so research would not have enough time to collect significant data to say whether  these pitches have managed to find the ‘holy grail' of being less likely to cause injury than a natural pitch.
Despite World Rugby's approval, the artificial surfaces should not be rolled out across the game until they are definitely proven not to be a player welfare risk, no matter how slight that risk may be.

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