Bloodgate: The Fallout

RUGBY: Harlequins

Harlequins started the season yesterday with a disappointing 26-15 victory at Twickenham as they failed to create headlines on the pitch that would distract from the ongoing 'Bloodgate' scandal that continues to dominate the news off the pitch.

The bloodgate scandal saw Quins fined £260,000, the offending player Tom Williams banned for four months (reduced from one year on appeal), their physio banned for two years and their former Director of Rugby Dean Richards banned for three years yet many figures within the sporting media have stated their happiness with the severity of the punishment handed to Quins.

Articles such as this one in The Times have stated their delight that ERC have decided to hand out such penalties as it necessary to prove that Rugby is an honest, honourable sport especially when compared to the sport that many within the game constantly measure itself against; football. Now I am a fan of both sports (although I regard myself predominantly a football fan) yet it constantly irritates when fans and figures within Rugby Union see the game as morally superior to football. This is a sport that hands out a four month ban to a player acting under orders to feign injury, yet gives a ban of eight weeks to a player found guilty of eye-gouging. Not only were Schalk Burger's actions disgraceful, his coach, Peter de Villiers, defended it saying it was part of the game and that those who disagreed should take up ballet dancing instead. Now while Quins' actions deserved to be punished, how can a game take such a moral highground when it has other, arguably more pressing issues to deal with?

It has even been suggested that Richards' actions are due to his association with Leicester Tigers, a club that pioneered the concept of professionalism in Rugby Union. For a sport that prided itself on the amateur ideal to separate itself from professionalism in other sports such as football and Rugby League, a belief that professionalism caused this cheating is no surprise.

Harlequin's reputation has taken a huge hit over the summer as a result of the scandal and it will be difficult to rebuild. Although the team have been rightly reprimanded, it speaks volumes about the sport that some call "Violence with honour" would see cheating, a foreign element more evident in other sports, punished more severely than an act of barbarism