Coverage of grope claims sad, says Zara

BRITISH royal Zara Phillips has described as “quite sad” coverage of alleged groping of a woman by her husband, England rugby captain Mike Tindall, at a team outing during the World Cup in New Zealand.

Tindall, who married the Queen’s grand-daughter in July, was yesterday alleged by The Sun to have been flirting with “a gorgeous blonde” in a Queenstown bar last Sunday, while the tabloid also claimed dwarf-throwing took place as the team celebrated their win over Argentina.

Phillips, who is competing at the Johnson and Perrott Land Rover International Horse Trials in Ballindenisk, Co Cork, seemed un-perturbed by the coverage yesterday.

Asked if she was upset by the claims, she smiled and said: “It’s quite sad that with the World Cup going on, that’s all they have to write about. It’s one of the best tournaments and that is all the news they can get out of it,” said Phillips, who is competing for the second time at the Cork fixture and undertakes her dressage today on Lord Lauries.

She confirmed she had spoken to Tindall.

“Of course I spoke to him. I speak to him every day,” said Phillips, a highly-accomplished rider with individual world and European titles to her name.

The team outing was reportedly sanctioned by the England management and a spokesman defended the player and his teammates.

“Mike and several of the players were enjoying an evening out after he had led the team to a hard-earned victory over Argentina,” said the spokesman.

“Like all the lads, he plays for England with a massive amount of passion and he was relaxing after a tough match.”

The Sun’s story on the team and the “Mad Midget Weekender” was accompanied by photographs of a player wrestling with dwarves, though none of Tindall with the mysterious blonde.

Bar owner Rich Deane said on the venue’s Facebook page that nothing inappropriate had taken place.

“Firstly, there was no dwarf throwing — that’s just not cool. Secondly, there was no scandal by any of the English rugby players that we saw. They were great lads — not throwing the midgets. It was all light-hearted good humoured fun. This is the tabloids taking photos out of context and telling silly stories.”

The England rugby team was also embroiled in controversy during its last visit to New Zealand in 2008 and manager Martin Johnson had demanded his players behave this time around.

“We speak about that whenever we go away and we’ll do that again when we hit the ground,” said Johnson last month.

“We have got to be careful. It is a different world to what it was 20 years ago. I remember going to New Zealand as a British Lion in 1993 and the boys had good fun, but they have got to be careful not to put themselves and their teammates at risk.”