JOHNNY WATTERSONperuses the world of sport

Return of Richards a total farce

FORMER ENGLAND icon Dean Richards has exploited the ambiguities in a judgment that banned him from rugby for three years – one that was supported by the International Rugby Board (IRB). Richards is being allowed to assist Worcester, despite having 27 months left to run on his suspension. It merely adds further cynicism to the growing understanding of how things work in real life if you have friends and influence. That the law means only what an elite cohort contrive it to mean, is becoming increasingly obvious.

How beastly for the game that RFU disciplinary officer Judge Jeff Blackett ruled that Richards could, indeed, work for Worcester despite the former Harlequins coach being subject to a worldwide ban from “participating in any capacity” in rugby competitions.

Consultancy work and after- dinner speaking engagements in rugby clubs fall outside that definition or inside as the case may be. Nobody now knows.

Apparently the ERC got it all terribly wrong and forgot to define what “participation in any capacity” actually means. Welcome back Deano. Nice one against the head in that set-piece.

Exploiting the rules holds a place close to Richard’s heart as that was what he was banned for in the first instance. While the career of the Harlequins’ struck-off physiotherapist Steph Brennan is in tatters and Dr Wendy Chapman is thoroughly trashed by the Medical Council after the schoolyard scheme replete with joke shop blood, the big coach is welcomed back by little Worcester.

Clearly they are a club as deeply principled as the former Leicester policeman.

Worcester owner Cecil Duckworth said Richards had contributed to a report into the club’s failure last season. That’s hardly participating in rugby. Is it? That’s not something a coach would do. Is it? That’s not playing a direct role in how Worcester might perform this season. Is it?

If you are not yet cynically disposed towards Richards’ outlandish offensive against the system or even begrudgingly applaud his bone-headed, confrontational nature so prevalent when he ruled the English backrow, then bear in mind that the indomitable Mr Duckworth is a member of the RFU task group, a beyond reproach syndicate set up to review cheating in the game. And how Richards might command another salary for holding a useful inside track there.

The light touch attitude of Duckworth and Worcester towards banned cheats is both legally approved and lamentably embraced. Not only has it humiliated the IRB, ERC and RFU but also the game of rugby.

That the lawyers couldn’t cobble together a series of words that satisfied all and effectively kept Richards out of the game for three years is absurdly humorous, while Worcester’s race to the low moral ground illustrates their plain contempt for the spirit in which the original ban was given.

Their careless opportunism is Judge Jeff-approved but where does empathy for rugby’s stature come in or the club’s powers to discriminate or enhance the ability of their younger members to respect rugby’s “laws”?

As the game strives to highlight a cheating “zero tolerance” it teeters towards an abyss by tripping on its face at the first asking. Richards has been shown a misguided tolerance and a soft shoulder by his own kind. You just have to wonder if they feel some self-reproach, if it is credible Deano was the only one “at it”.

It appears the in-house fall guy for “Bloodgate” is covertly regarded as a stand up guy for rugby.

Irish cricket makes the hard call

THE IRISH cricketers are currently touring Zimbabwe, which may cause a snarl from those opposed to legitimising a state headed by a despot such as Mugabe. Cricket Scotland have refused to go for an Intercontinental Cup tie in early October as they said their players would not travel as a result of government advice and the volatile political climate. Who is right?

In 2008, the all-Ireland sport of cricket sought advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs and British Foreign Office regarding a tour.

Both governments advised against travel to the country but had no objection to Ireland playing Zimbabwe on neutral territory, which they did in October of that year in Kenya.

Zimbabwe Cricket recently contacted the International Cricket Council (ICC) and stated, because of political and cricketing progress, they no longer felt it was justifiable to have to play their home games away from their country.

Cricket Ireland again made contact with the Irish and British governments to determine whether there had been a change of view in the two years since the question was last asked. The positions had altered.

The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs stated they supported the Unity Government now established in Zimbabwe, and had no objection to an Irish cricket team travelling there, while the British too no longer advised against touring to Zimbabwe for political reasons.

However, the British government changed from Labour to a Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition – that resulted in a hardening of Britain’s political stance on the issue. Confused, Ireland sought more advice from the Irish Government to see if they had also shifted their position.

Their position remained unchanged and this week they confirmed support for the evolving Unity Government in Zimbabwe, with no objection to the Irish cricket team travelling.

As a supporter of Ireland teams not visiting South Africa during the Apartheid years, instinct says this is all self-serving drivel.

However, human rights lawyer and current Zimbabwe Minister for Education, Richard Coltart, compared Zimbabwe 2010 to South Africa in the early 1990s when sporting teams were readmitted to international competition.

There comes a tipping point.

A national team could be propping up a murderous regime or net contributors to a new democracy. Irish cricket has timed well.

Walton not amused by Cowen caper

FORMER RYDER Cup golfer Philip Walton isn’t seeing the funny side of Taoiseach Brian Cowen’s stand-up routine. The talented Biffo (stage name) put away his hoarse morning baritone for the higher pitched, very, very early morning castrato, when he did a bring-the-house -down exchange between Walton and gruff former Ryder Cup captain Bernard Gallacher. Blazers bar couldn’t get enough, Biffo swinging an imaginary club and delightfully shifting his hips out of the way on the follow through.

Walton, whose voice was never so low as to have him accused of being hung-over for an early morning tee time, has expressed his disapproval at Cowen’s capers and plans to write a letter to Leinster House ventilating his anger. In 1995 at Oak Hill, Rochester, New York, the Dubliner two- putted the final green in the penultimate singles match to beat American Jay Haas, securing an historic Ryder Cup win for the team.

Walton is taking the tomfoolery in Galway in the same splenetic way as Cowen is taking the accusations of Garglegate and has claimed in Fore, a golf website, that he and his wife Suzanne will write to the Taoiseach seeking an explanation, adding that from his and his family’s point of view it was “very disappointing to say the least”. Well, that’s the general consensus.

RTE's weird sense of sporting priorities

OBVIOUSLY THE intelligent are creationists and know God created the world in seven promotion-free days. We also know RTÉ, being a subversive institution, adheres to Darwinism. Natural selection determines radio’s must-listen-to sports bulletins and is based on survival of the fittest. The dross dies, dude.

It might be God’s day to create US Open tennis final news or even the Champions League with Man United and the ever popular Rangers. But no, a Darwinian twist pushed girls’ soccer to the forefront last Tuesday morning.

The teen exploits in the under-17 World Cup tournament in the Caribbean overshadowed all on the 7.30am sports news, Nadal and Rooney tagged at the end proving that an all-knowing being crafts in his . . . ahem, her own image.

RTÉ radio put a reporter in the Caribbean for teenage girls football but didn’t for the recent senior Irish rugby team tour to Australia and New Zealand. Maybe the reporter will also pop over to Barbados where Katie Taylor may win a third World title. Maybe not. We are all occasional cheerleaders for women’s marginalised sport but frankly “doing” the under-17 girls World Cup and promoting it above a tennis Slam final or Champions League soccer feels jarringly guilt-led, an unapproved concept in Origin of Species.

Ricky rescued by a great humanitarian

IRISH GIRL Emma Bowe takes the humanitarian award this week for her noble dedication and undying affection for former world champion Ricky “Hitman” Hatton. An Irish senior champion herself, the Bundoran girl recently flew from Dublin to Manchester, ostensibly to attend a cage fighting night out with Hatton.

But her big heart was just about to explode when she realised Hatton was behaving erratically and seemed “paranoid” throughout the evening.

The Donegal sleuth noticed he kept disappearing into toilets and coming back alert and perky. Her achin’, breakin’ heart was pumping, the burden, apprehension and distress all too much.

When the multi-millionaire fighter went back to the Irish champ’s hotel bedroom and allegedly began to chop up Charlie in her bathroom and hoover it up his nose through £20 notes, she couldn’t hold back and decided to save the Hitman from ruination.

Bowe’s only concern was Hatton might have decided to fight again – a super fight against WBA light-welterweight champion Amir Khan was being spoken about – and “had a heart attack”. If that had happened on her watch she could never have forgiven herself. Hatton was her hero, and his drinking was heroic too. That night a guestimate for the twice welterweight champion was an alleged seven lines of coke, 11 pints of Guinness, four vodkas, two glasses of wine and several sambucas.

Far from there being any suspicion of a sting in this tragic story of friendship and selfless loyalty and before Bowe’s heart had broken after seeing her hero so allegedly and desperately taking the class A drug, she managed to cleverly acquire a close-up video of him allegedly snorting the Colombian marching powder up his nose.

The story of her high-minded rescue somehow reached a newspaper that specialises in the various and seemingly endless problems of celebrity sportsmen and women, the News of The World. Irish women’s amateur boxing may rejoice at such incorruptible loyalty to a friend by one of their own.