Failure To Launch

A few weeks ago, I opined that the Ospreys didn't look rusty. Sadly, it appears they've been left out in the Swansea rain ever since.

Saturday's game at Liberty Stadium was excruciating. Some of the rugby played was of amateur quality... but such highlights were scarce. Ulster won't and shouldn't care; they leave with a valuable scalp, entirely merited simply by virtue of their status as visitors. It wasn't their job to provide entertainment, and it's not their fault that the home side were so abject. A tiny handful of loyal travelling fans sang deliriously at the death, and it was impossible not to smile.

The Ospreys were epically clueless. At the breakdown, they flopped and floundered; behind it, they formed line abreast along the gain-line like bemused cattle, inevitably catching man-and-ball repeatedly, as they denied themselves the time and space to craft openings. When the painfully slow ball that resulted wasn't being shipped on to another statuesque "option runner", it was being shanked heavenward without even the pretense of a tactical context. Forward and backs alike seemed to treat the ball as if getting rid of the thing was an end in itself.

Ulster brought precious little to the party; but they brought enough. Ian Humphries' bald competence at fly-half easily eclipsed the ragged torpor of his counterpart James Hook, managing to ensure that what few moments of creativity appeared, favoured the men in white. A try count of 2-3 is all that need be said to illustrate their worthiness.

But as a spectacle, the game was unwatchable. It's a tragedy that around 7000 of us had nowhere else to look...

Blood on the Carpet

Bloodgate - The Sequel

Excellent words from Will Carling on the machinations of self-absolution and cover-up.

But Will and other ex-player pundits are unavoidably compromised when discussing the matter. There are friendships and loyalties involved everywhere, and these can make it impossible to remain objective.

As with nearly everything I've read from ex-players on this issue, Carling can't resist pointing out Dean Richards' status as a scapegoat. It's a perfectly fair point and an understandable one for someone who knows Dean Richards - the whole man, not the straw one - to make. The problem is, it's irrelevant to the big picture, and sounds - however unfairly- like apologism.

Richards was fully complicit in an affair which has not only shamed the sport publically, but has also been a betrayal of all those with an investment in it, from major corporate sponsors right down to you and me, sat in the pub, cheering the exploits men we feel the right to regard as heroes.

Pundits who either say or imply that "everyone knew what was going on" miss the point. There is a distinction between the general suspicion that not everyone is playing fair at all times, and certain knowledge that systematic and cynical cheating has been proceeding unchecked. Once a crime is proved, it it not enough to say, in effect, "well what did you expect?" To bring the full weight of authority to bear on those caught in the act, is not to suggest that there are no other culpable parties. To jail a few hoods may be no substitute for dismantling The Mob; but it's better than nothing, and a welcome start, so long as a start it truly is.

It is up to all students and lovers of the game now to ensure that any sanitizing operation fails; that the light remains shining on the culprits of our humiliation and the "G&T brigade" are not allowed to absolve themselves of responsibility, past, present or future. Dean Richards and his small band of co-defendants are due that much, but no more.

Is Richards a scapegoat? Certainly. But he is a fully deserving one. The notion that he was simply playing along with an existing culture of deceit simply won't wash. Even if he was not a founding father of that culture, as a senior figure in the game, his complicity perpetuated and legitimized it. I can't find an ounce of sympathy for him.

But that's easy for me to say.