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NotThamesWater-
And that cheating and getting away with cheating during the course of the game is admired - see defensive “linespeed” (offside), basically every back row player at every breakdown, all front row scrummaging, “flat” passes, all scrum put-ins, all scrum halves, etc.
Then there are the shoulder charges, high tackles, fights, gouging, spitting, calling the referee a fucking cheat, Dan Biggar’s constant moaning, huge Frenchmen elbowing people in the face, etc.
Yes, definitely the steroids, ephedrine, testosterone, HGH, etc.
But other than that, what have the Romans ever done for us?
c00ps
It's already pretty messy. But Chris Robshaw's allegations about clubs taking a pay out to keep quiet (whether this is founded or unfounded, I don't know) make it a whole lot messier! Will try to find source...
Quote (from D*ily M*il story):
Robshaw said: 'It’s been one of those things where unfortunately years and years ago a lot of clubs took a pay out to be quiet about the incident.
'And now it is one of those things that has been spoken about for a long time amongst players and the wider public. 'We look at their squad and it is a big squad of international players. I don’t think you have to be a genius to work one of these things out. It looks like it is starting to be dealt with and hopefully it is going in the right direction.
'Hopefully we can get back to a level playing field. Because that is what the salary cap is about, isn’t it? Making sure everyone has a chance, everyone has the same level and we can compete and we have a competitive league.
'It is not great the game that we loved is in the world eye. The pinnacle of English rugby is illegal.
'I think it puts our sport in a very dangerous place. We are a sport that always claimed to be whiter than white, we would look down on football and look down on this and that, we would say how it is but we are like everyone else.
'Call it what you want. It is cheating. It is not a good situation for our sport to be in. It is not a thing we pride ourselves on.
'When you look at cheating in athletics, when you look at cheating in cycling, when you look at cheating in baseball – for us as a sport we like to think our sport is cleaner and cleaner than everyone else.
'It is not anymore. It is not. We have to be realistic about that. As a sport we got to take the damage that comes with that now. I am sure it will be like that for a while. It is not going to be easy for our sport to move forward.
'I know the World Cup didn’t finish as we would have liked but look at the high it brought the country. And now we got some damage control to do.'