Friday 18 September 2009

Come on, RFU, get tough

If the Rugby Football Union is really serious about improving the image of the game, then it could start be addressing some of the disgraceful scenes that unfolded at the end of Bath's loss to Wasps on Sunday.

And it could also start handing out meaningful sanctions for odious acts of thuggery on the pitch.

It's all very well setting up a task group that will probe past examples of cheating in an effort to burnish union's tarnished reputation, but it is infringements in the here and now that need to be adequately addressed too.

Firstly, there's the matter of referee Chris White failing to penalise Wasps for hollering at Bath fly-half Ryan Davis as he lined up his potentially match-tying conversion attempt at The Rec on Saturday.

These weren't quiet mutterings from the Wasps players. These were shouts deliberately timed to put Davis off his game.

This wasn't 'gamesmanship'. This was illegal.

White should have given Davis the opportunity to prepare his build-up again and banned the Wasps players from charging.

Another Davis – Brad, the Bath assistant coach – was magnanimous this week when I asked him about the incident.

"That's not the reason we failed to draw the game," he said. "We need to worry about our performance in attack and defence. If we get those things right we are a good enough side to climb the table."

In one respect, Brad is right. It's water under the bridge now and Bath need to concentrate on their own manifold shortcomings rather than casting around for excuses.

But imagine if Wasps had been punished and Ryan had been given the chance to take the kick without distraction. If he'd landed that, then the young fly-half would have received a terrific, timely confidence boost, as well as bagging an extra point for his team.

If Wasps' antics before the kick were bad enough, David Lemi's 'celebrations' after the kick went wide were appalling. Photographs show the winger giving the crowd and Bath players a double one-fingered salute.

The former Bristol winger issued a gushing apology yesterday, in which he used the hackneyed mitigation of 'I got a bit carried away in the heat of the moment and was very emotional'.

If the image of Lemi jumping in the air with middle fingers aloft was a PR disaster for the game, then the RFU failing to punish him for the gesture is an even bigger one.

Like many involved in the game, I'd been expecting the Union – given the events of the summer – to come down like a tonne of bricks on any wayward on-pitch behaviour. But not a bit of it.

On Tuesday, Gloucester flanker Andy Hazell was given a pathetic one-week ban for taking aim and stamping on the back of Julian Salvi's leg. And all this despite the mid-range sanction for stamping being five weeks, the lower end two. Hazell is a lucky man.

The RFU needs to bare its teeth more, otherwise the scourge of stamping, gouging and other nefarious practices will continue to blight the game.

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