Cheating double standards?

[baldpaul101]

As we know there's been a pile of threads on here and every message board shouting about those cheating Saracens.
However I have just read this BBC article:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/50785122

check out the following:

Chiliboy Ralepelle is facing the third anti-doping ban of his career. - How many chances does one player get?

During his time with Munster, current Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus decided that a served steroid ban was no reason not to sign second row and compatriot Gerbrandt Grobler for the Irish province.

Grobler has since moved to Gloucester where the head coach is Johan Ackermann, another former Springbok who served his own two-year doping suspension.

Strange that Ackerman & Grobler don't seem to get any attention when both are proven cheats ho have been banned in the past?


I wonder how many Gloz fans happy slag off sarries when they have two known cheats closer to home?

I know these are not on the same level but doping is doping whether financial or pharmaceutical surely?


 

[NellyWellyWaspy]

I take the view that, when in a glass house, one should not throw stones.

Ban served? That's it. Done.

I am not in favour of the Daily Fail type of witch hunt, insisting that those around us are pure through and through.

We all make mistakes, some of us get caught.

[Hymenoptera]

For me they are very different. A person who makes the decision to go down that path and risk a ban is a fool to himself.
A club that systematically cheats an entire league and its own supporters to achieve dominance, claim they are whiter than white and lest we forget, this is their second time caught, is on a whole other level.

[Neils]

For me they are very different. A person who makes the decision to go down that path and risk a ban is a fool to himself.
A club that systematically cheats an entire league and its own supporters to achieve dominance, claim they are whiter than white and lest we forget, this is their second time caught, is on a whole other level.

Very much a +1

[Trevs Big Tackle]

Pizza-gate, uncontested scrums, and the wife's diet pills...

Once you've made yourself a member of a 'tribe' e.g. Saracens supporter or Wasps supporter, it can be far too easy to minimise, overlook or even defend some dodgy practices from your own side/tribe that you would otherwise cry bloody murder over if you saw someone else doing it.

[Vespula Vulgaris]

Personally I'm usually willing to give someone a second chance. Everyone can mess up once. It's when it happens again and again that it becomes a problem.

Like with the EAs.

[RogerE]

The diet-pills incident was not a Club issue, in the same way that foul play incidents are player issues, not Club issues.

Shaun's uncontested scrum use of the laws was well known - every team did it, but he was heard organising it, and so every time Wasps went to  uncontested scrums we were accused of cheating - even when our scrum was so on-top it worked to our disadvantage e.g. against Leicester at Twickenham.

The Pizzagate episode happened because of something that happened a few weeks before when one of our forwards nearly drowned after being trapped face-down in liquid mud at the bottom of a prolonged ruck playing at Watford. Wasps had discussions about it with the RFU/PRL and it had been decided that if such conditions happened again the match shouldn't be played. Wasps asked the ref to examine the mud along the Stockport  pitch sidelines and the ref decreed there was too much liquid mud. This was told to me by a Premiership ref, and was confirmed by the forward concerned before he transferred to....Sale

[coddy]

Massive difference between what Saracens have done and players who have served their bans from steroid abuse, I'm amazed someone could even compare the two.

Saracens will be welcomed back to the Premiership if and when they are proved to be on a level playing field with the rest of the clubs.

[Bloke in North Dorset]

The Pizzagate episode happened because of something that happened a few weeks before when one of our forwards nearly drowned after being trapped face-down in liquid mud at the bottom of a prolonged ruck playing at Watford. Wasps had discussions about it with the RFU/PRL and it had been decided that if such conditions happened again the match shouldn't be played. Wasps asked the ref to examine the mud along the Stockport  pitch sidelines and the ref decreed there was too much liquid mud. This was told to me by a Premiership ref, and was confirmed by the forward concerned before he transferred to....Sale

I went up for that game as my mate was a Sale season ticket holder and he’d “borrowed” a season tick from a friend who wasn’t going. I’d been the previous season and so knew a few of the guys. We were in a famous pub when word came out that something was wrong, boy did I get some stick.

[MarleyWasp]

The whole pizza element was totally blown out of proportion. 6 pizzas turned up to a coach with 25-30 Rugby players and 15-20 staff. You can use many phrases to sum up Sale fans but "good at basic maths" isn't one of them!

My old man and I were there. Could have done without the Sale CEO whipping the home supporters into a frenzy. It was fortunate no Wasps fan was hurt because of it.

[Stang]

Sorry, for the uninformed, what happened at “Pizzagate”?

[Gaz]

11th hour game cancellation at Sale a few years back due to a waterlogged pitch

Conspiracy goes that the Wasps players just didn't fancy it and 'encouraged' the officials to call off the game while kicking back and munching on pizza - implying they had never intended to play the game.

All rubbish of course, as mentioned above.

[Bloke in North Dorset]

IIRC The accusation was also that we had a weakened team due to long injury list, wasn’t it ever thus  , so it was in our interests to postpone.

[DGP Wasp]

And despite the soft ground, Sale had seen fit to trundle a cherry picker up and down one touchline earlier in the day in order to change some advertising boards along the front edge of the stand roof, making that side of the pitch unplayable in the eyes of the ref.  Wasps may have expressed a view on the suitability of the pitch, but is was the ref's call.

Only ever went to Edgely Park once (06 Prem semi).  Never again.  Was glad to see the back of it.

[MarleyWasp]

The pizzas were ordered for the staff who tape up and massage players before and after the game. Kick off represents the start of their break so the club would always order them pizzas to eat on the coach.

In terms of what happened after, Wasps were charged with refusing to play as David Rose, the referee, had said that in his view the pitch was playable. Wasps successfully argued that Rose had failed to apply the correct process, which was Premiership Rugby specific. Rose instead worked on the basis that all three parties had to be in agreement that the game go ahead and as Wasps weren't in agreement the match couldn't go ahead.

Rose was stood down from the Premiership for a number of years afterwards leading to him awarding a dubious match winning try to Northampton against us at Adams Park after 3 yellow cards and him moaning about being called a cheat on Facebook, which was ironic given that it was one of the matches he refereed whilst claiming JSA...