Coke, Cheats and Eye Gougers.

It’s been a bit of a disappointing month after the euphoria of the Lions epic series in South Africa and the image of rugby has taken a bit of a battering.

Closest to home was the admission of ex Ulster player, Justin Harrison, admitting to taking coke at an end of season blow out with his then club Bath. There has been much comment about how he reacted after the event and how he came clean and expressed utmost remorse. He can now try and re-build his tarnished reputation from January on.

I’m sorry, great player that he was and all during his first season at Ulster, but Harrison’s contriteness smacks more of good PR advice rather than genuine remorse. Perhaps if he’d admitted everything in the immediate aftermath, rather than hightail it to Australia, his confession would have carried more weight.

It’s extraordinary that the RFU aren’t looking into this further.

Extraordinary is the only way you can describe the decision to ban Harlequins player Tom Williams for one year as punishment for faking a blood injury in the Heineken Cup match with Leinster. It is unbelievable to me that he acted alone on this.

If, as suggested, he did act alone then ten years would have been more proportionate for a devious mastermind such as Williams who apparently was able to magic up a blood capsule, seemingly fool a medically qualified physio into believing it was a real injury and then with the wink of his eye was seemingly able to persuade the coaching staff to take the decision to push on the injured Nick Evans to replace him.

Let’s hope that while he is taking his break Williams can turn his extraordinary powers to healing career threatening injuries because Harlequins are going to need someone like this if they continue to shovel their players back onto the pitch while obviously injured.

Finally, Northampton’s decision to promote convicted eye gouger Dylan Hartley to Club Captain says it all really. Sure he’s a good, hard player and would be the first name on many team sheets but the promotion of Hartley is, in my book, a step too far and yet again sends out the wrong message.

With three yellow cards last season and a series of off the ball incidents since his return from his six month suspension (not forgetting his petulant display at Ravenhill for England Saxons just before his forced layoff) the allegedly much changed Hartley still has a lot to prove.

In the light of the furore over Schalk Burger’s act of gouging, together with the high profile incidents of Quinlan and Parisse, Northampton would have been better served to have looked elsewhere.

While we can all snigger and tut tut in equal measure at the exploits of some of rugby’s stars, the powers that be do really need to take a grip and stamp down on these offenders. I wonder what would have happened to Joe Public if he had got pissed and got involved in a fight at his works outing, cheated to gain a business benefit and then tried to physically maim someone?