Michael Moynihan: Raising a glass to the Scottish rulebreakers

Scotland Ireland's Garry Ringrose and Stuart Hogg of Scotland Picture: ©INPHO/Laszlo Geczo

Another week, another controversy, eh?

Before getting into the meat of this particular imbroglio, take a step back and enjoy the presentation.

I refer here to the news which broke on Friday afternoon about a few members of the Scotland rugby squad, who were disciplined for straying out of the . . . well, read it yourself in the words of the BBC report.

“Captain Stuart Hogg, Finn Russell and Ali Price were among six Scotland players disciplined for breaching team protocols after their Six Nations victory over Italy last Saturday.

“The group were punished for leaving the team hotel to visit a bar in Edinburgh after returning from Rome.

“Darcy Graham, Sam Johnson and Sione Tuipulotu were the others involved. When Scotland's management was made aware of the group leaving, the players were ordered to return immediately.” 

First, you have to admire the phrasing: “ . . . punished for leaving the team hotel to visit a bar in Edinburgh” is a masterpiece, conjuring as it does a mental image of several tweedy individuals peering closely at the fixtures and fittings of an exotic emporium in Edinburgh (“And here, a bejewelled humidor”).

Whatever the players got involved in during their visit to the, ah, bar in Edinburgh, it can’t compare to the rich possibilities conjured up by this bland description.

In second place, but only barely, is the heroic understatement later in the news story: “When Scotland's management was made aware of the group leaving, the players were ordered to return immediately.” 

While a mental image of a wide-eyed teammate bursting into a management meeting with the words “You’ll never guess where the lads have gone” is a seductive one, it’s surely far more likely that Scottish bosses were alerted by a Twitter DM or coded message on TikTok.

Of course, I find myself praying that the order to return immediately was sent the same way. A sternly-worded voice message could never hope to match the power of a synchronised routine sent to the miscreants via social media (“Drink up and head back to the hotel boys, the boss is expressing his displeasure through the medium of modern dance”).

Anyway, the reason I bring it up in the first place is very simple: is this all a bit over the top?

I’m aware that all of the details may not be to hand just yet, and for all I know there may have been goats disembowelled on the bar counter, with players draped in entrails reciting Bono’s poetry aloud or some similar affront to the natural order.

If not, then this seems a bit . . . excessive, no? These players are international-level rugby professionals, a shorthand description which suggests to me many years of physical dedication and preparation: years, in fact, of making correct choices with diet and hydration, early nights, and debaucheries denied.

Does one “visit to a bar” - not even an entire evening of dissipation - waste all that preparation?

I’m not making any pleas for clemency on behalf of these Scots, but I have to acknowledge one other reason for pleading their case. It makes a welcome change to hear about some human frailty among such sportsmen, as distinct from the usual loudly-trumpeted desire to sweep dressing-rooms. For that reason alone give me Scotland over New Zealand every time.

Remembering the man who shaped modern day cricket

I see that Sir Christopher Slade passed away recently.

If the name means nothing to you, allow me to refresh: Slade was the judge who in 1977 had to rule on whether cricket players would be allowed the freedom to play for what became known as Kerry Packer’s Flying Circus, despite opposition from the game’s governing bodies.

In the end, Slade found in favour of the players, ruling that the governing bodies weren’t entitled to stop them from earning a living. As noted in obituaries which popped up across the water, many developments and innovations which changed the game of cricket stemmed from Slade’s decision back in the 70s.

It’s rare enough to be able to pinpoint the precise decision which instigated major change in a sport, but Slade’s judgement is one. If anyone can think another example, by all means get in touch.

A guide to GAA crisis management

A quick recap of another ongoing argument.

The GPA is unhappy with the GAA over expenses. The GAA is unhappy with the GPA over expenses. County managers are training players too hard, or too often. The GPA want something that goes beyond the expenses issue, and the GAA want something beyond the expenses issue as well.

The apparent impasse here isn’t as interesting in itself compared to what it tells you about the various bodies involved.

For instance, no matter how much sports science we hear about, or how much we’re told about the expertise that’s being deployed at inter-county level to train players, nobody seems to know how much training those inter-county teams are doing and if it too much or too little. Also, it’s clear individual county boards either don’t know what’s going on with the players their clubs are providing to county teams, or don’t care. In either case they’re incapable of interceding with inter-county management about the welfare of those players.

In addition, it’s also clear the one person in GAA society answerable to nobody is the county manager. In the gunboat diplomacy involving the GPA and the GAA the manager has been the most notable absentee, which is odd — he’s the person who determines the number of training sessions. There’s a simple reason for this, of course: the county boards don’t want to annoy managers, and the players don’t want to annoy the managers either. (Even though the one person who could, at a stroke, ensure expenses are paid out is ...) 

But here’s the absolute cherry on top. The weapon being deployed here as an indicator of how everything is escalating is a media ban. As in, the media which nobody pays attention to because “all that matters is what’s going on within the group”. The media: to which players pay no attention, to which managers ascribe no influence. How did the media become important enough to be used as a pawn in this? Since all the other parties to the dispute got too scared to take on the managers, presumably.

Bullough delivers a cautionary tale

The word ‘timely’ could have been invented for Oliver Bullough’s new book — Butler to the World: How Britain Became the Servant of Tycoons, Tax Dodgers, Kleptocrats and Criminals. Though Bullough examines how the Virgin Islands became a tax haven (by interviewing the lawyer who came up with the idea), his main focus is on how London became a host for Russian oligarchs. Specifically, how a society becomes corrupted and connives in its own corruption: worth reading as a cautionary tale, maybe.