English rugby began the fight to restore its battered image on Wednesday with the launch by the Rugby Football Union (RFU) of a set of Core Values that they hope will underline all the best aspects of the game.
Damian Hopley, head of the players' union, lamented the game's "horrific summer" at the Twickenham launch but RFU president John Owen stressed that the new campaign pre-dated the events of the last few months.
The fake blood scandal at Harlequins, the missed drug test bans and cocaine-taking confessions at Bath and eye-gouging in high-profile international matches combined to batter the game's reputation and raise serious questions about its occupation of the sporting moral high ground.
Those events led to the hurried setting up of a new "Image of the Game" group - which will report back next week - but the Core Values task force was set up two years ago in response to concerns that standards of behaviour both of players and spectators in the professional and amateur games were changing for the worse.
With the rapid expansion of the game has come some unwelcome developments from people the RFU said were "less aware of the game's traditions and values than they might have been."
Respect for match officials and their decisions, always an absolute in rugby from school level to World Cup, was beginning to be eroded while the aggressive pitchside-parent so prevalent in junior soccer was beginning to be seen more often at rugby.
A wide-ranging consultation exercise followed and the result was the enshrining of the five core values of teamwork, respect, enjoyment, discipline and sportsmanship.
Hopley said his members had a "burning ambition" to restore the reputation of the game.
"They want to be out there delivering as role models," he said. "The sport has taken some body blows but the key thing is how we react and this is an important step forward.
"There are some outstanding people in the game and it's important to not lose sight of that after a pretty horrific summer."
RFU CEO Francis Baron said that the feedback he had received from all levels of the game was 'let's get back to underlying values.'
"What has happened in the summer is not typical in the game. The Core Values launch would have happened anyway but what happened in the summer has given it added piquancy," he said.
"A major part of ensuring that this is taken up is the elite players. They are massive role models now and essential for embedding the core values."
