By Matt Hardy
When European rugby chiefs released the verdict from the Johnny Sexton’s disciplinary hearing at 9:30pm on Sunday night, it marked the long, slow and painful death of the farce that is rugby values.
Rugby values can be defined as the ideals some in the past have placed on the game, whereby everything is about respect and doing the right thing and saying “good job, fellow squire” when the opposition scores a try or wins a game.
Those values, if they ever existed, are officially dead and buried six, if not eight, feet under.
Sexton let off?
Because in the independent disciplinary hearing for the talismanic Irish No10 – who admitted misconduct, probable use of the “f-word” and multiple offences linked to approaching match officials – Sexton was handed a three-match ban.
Plenty have suggested that this is a lenient ruling, and that the ban ends coincidentally just before a World Cup, but this is an independent hearing – away from an EPCR organisation who were pushing for a bigger ban.
But what the ruling does is send out a dangerous message about someone not part of a matchday 23, like Sexton was, coming into the field of play and verbally abusing referees.
It sanctions the type of behaviour that rugby bigwigs have been telling grassroots clubs is immoral and should have no place in the sport.
And it indicates that you can throw toys out of a pram, approach and challenge officials with an “aggressive demeanour” – as referee Jaco Peyper described it – with little meaningful punishment.
Throw this saga into a pit of rugby mismanagement that includes controversial tackle heights, the contract negligence in much of the women’s game, and the issues of historic misogyny at the Wales Rugby Union and it’s not hard to see where rugby is.
Death of values
There are international players who have committed domestic violence still actively playing, players who have gone off the rails, yet there continue to be ideals stuck in an era not fit for 2023.
Rugby is a sport for everyone, but the sport itself seemingly does as much damage as it does bridge building.
Now officials are fair game to abuse from players, just two years after they were subject to abuse from an international rugby coach, Rassie Erasmus of South Africa.
The sport is dying. Attendance numbers are dwindling in some countries while the English Premiership has lost entire clubs. Even in France, where the game is thriving on the pitch, there have been corruption allegations in relation to the Rugby World Cup.
So come on into the crematorium, find your pew and take part in a service of remembrance for rugby values. Because, as of this week, they’re just a pile of ashes, laid bare for all to see. If they weren’t already, that is.
