This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with tweets, twits and casualties.
The cost of three words…
As the story broke initially, we were all for penning a pompous tome on lack of transparency, hidden plots and agency subterfuge this week. Then of course, the real story broke: namely that Nathan Hughes found his disciplinary hearing ‘a joke’ and decided to share his feelings with a waiting world.
Hearings can be a bit of a tiresome process and can be somewhat drawn out, but they are absolutely necessary and to be honest, it’s been a long time since we felt the need to complain about a really unjust ban being handed out to a transgressor – be that unjustly long or unjustly short ahead of an international calendar. There’s no doubt the judiciary process has improved.
Nor is it any kind of mental picture that international coaches would form and hold up as a shining example to the emerging generation: a player quite clearly guilty of a punch on the pitch and having to face the music, flapping about on his phone during proceedings like a grumpy teenager stuck in detention.
There’s an age-old argument about role models, weighed up against the argument that we are still dealing with relatively young and extremely competitive men living in the comparative cocoon of professional sport and everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Is there anyone out there who has never made a petulant outburst he or she regretted?
But Hughes’ transgression will have a lasting impact. He had to know he was next in line for the England number eight jersey and had to know how crucial he was to England’s November plans. Considering the fate of those who have fallen foul of such mental blips under Eddie Jones in the past, Hughes can expect at the very least a royal rollocking, if not a quite significant slip down the pecking order – depending on the eventual verdict of the interrupted hearing.
And all for a tweet? The mind boggles…
And as if that wasn’t enough…
The mind boggles indeed, but goodness only knows what is going on in Freddie Burns’ mind at the moment. Or what has been since shortly before he crossed the whitewash on Saturday afternoon.
Some of it we can guess at. “I’m through, nobody home, here’s the line… I’ve done it. There’s nobody near me. Listen to that crowd! This is awesome, feel this moment, celebrate it, show them you love the club, show them your appreciation for their appreciation, under the posts now, there we go, my word, I can’t get this smile of my f-what the…?”
The disbelief briefly registers before he hits the turf face down, the scarcely-veiled anger on the face of his nearest supporter tells the rest of the story. As does the bizarrely muted reaction of the Toulouse coach on the sideline – one presumes he saw Maxime Medard closing in for the kill long before others did.
The club has closed ranks around Burns, who is evidently a decent bloke, hard worker and talented player going on the soundbites from his team-mates. One wonders how Chris Ashton’s team-mates might react if this were to happen during an Ash Splash.
Nobody will kick him harder than he will himself, at least until this coming weekend, where we find out if Todd Blackadder will give him a shot at redemption or not.
But if there’s two things youngsters will have learned last weekend, it’s respect the authorities and touch the ball down before you celebrate.
Why Hughes matters so
And then Chris Robshaw joined them.
The list of England’s troubled divas? No, the remarkable queue of players outside the virtual physio room at HQ ahead of England’s pivotal November series.
The most likely looking back-row for England, assuming Hughes is unavailable, is Zach Mercer, Tom Curry and Brad Shields, with six caps between them – a slightly misleading stat given Shields’ Super Rugby experience but still a grave indication of how stretched England’s resources have become.
Loosehead prop is also a problem, following injury to Mako Vunipola among others and the retirement of Joe Marler, while there are long-term injuries almost everywhere you look. With another weekend of European rugby looming, you’d get long odds on no further casualties being added to the list.
Again, there’s an age-old argument to be trotted out about too much rugby and better season planning, but if England start to sink without trace because of the dearth of playable players rather than the dearth of talent, the game will absolutely suffer as a whole.
This season has been brutal. A glance at this website’s front page just a few days ago has injuries, half of them season-ending, as the top stories. The attrition rate grows and grows, as does the clamour for restructuring seasons, but always somehow with more rugby in them rather than less. Something will give eventually, not just the players’ sinews. And when it does, things will start to get really ugly.
Loose Pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan