Former Harlequins director of rugby Dean Richards last night claimed the faking of injuries has been widespread in rugby union and “everybody knows that it goes on”.

Richards, who has been banned from the sport for three years following his role in the ‘bloodgate’ scandal, explained that various methods of manipulating the system have emerged in rugby.

The incident which led to Richards’ worldwide ban occurred in Harlequins’ Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leinster at the Twickenham Stoop on April 12th.

Tom Williams was given a blood capsule and ordered to feign injury so that Quins, who were trailing 6-5 with five minutes remaining, could send previously substituted fly-half Nick Evans back onto the field.

Richards said: “Blood capsules, cutting of players, false blood on rags, faked front-row injuries — all have gone on in the game.

“Hand on heart, if guys came out and spoke honestly about it, everybody knows that it goes on. Some people have physically cut people in the past and it was suggested to me by a couple of overseas players that we should have done that.

“I refused to do that, which is why we went down the route of using blood capsules. Yes we did wrong, we used a blood capsule. I’m quite comfortable saying that we did do that. But if there was any cutting done it certainly wasn’t done at my instigation.

“The blood on the rag, tomato ketchup on the rag, I have seen that done before. It happens, and it has happened, and it’s not just the English who have done it.”