The most regrettable thing from the Joe Marler genital-grabbing episode is just how much the aftermath has demolished the notion that rugby players are intellectually superior to league players.
You may have drawn that conclusion after years of dumbass behaviour by countless NRL players. Last year alone, the countincluded allegations of domestic violence, drug taking, lewd videos, assault, fighting in public, sexual assault, indecent assault, drink driving and obscene exposure.
And that's just 2019, with the latest geniuses from the NRL being the Bulldogs' Corey Harawira-Naera and Jayden Okunbor – stood down by the club so they can answer questions arising from taking two consenting schoolgirls back to their hotel last month when protocols demand no women in hotel rooms.
The girls were of the age of consent – 16 in New South Wales – and there is no suggestion any sexual activity or anything untoward took place; there is no criminal investigation. But if there was such a charge as Behaving Like Imbeciles, you'd bet they'd be in a spot of bother.
However, we have new champions - those rugby people attempting to explain away Marler's weird fondle of Alun Wyn Jones' genitals in the midst of a scuffle between the teams in England's Six Nations match against Wales. They reached new levels of idiocy.
England halfback Danny Care raced to the rescue of his Harlequins team-mate, saying on BBC's Rugby Union Weekly podcast: "I think anyone involved in rugby… things like that are seen as a joke. It's seen as a bit of banter. Exeter Chiefs, a few years back, every single try they scored they would all bundle on each other and tap each other on the genitals. That was their way of celebrating which we all thought was weird but I never thought anything of it other than it was just a bit strange.
Joe Marler's weird fondle of Alun Wyn Jones' genitals in the midst of a scuffle between the teams in England's Six Nations match against Wales. Photo / Twitter.
"So to see Joe doing that, in my personal opinion and this isn't the opinion of everyone, I don't see an awful lot wrong with it. I think it's a bit of a joke between two guys who have played against each other and know each other and he's trying to make light of the situation.'
Banter? In what universe does banter stop being verbal and become connected to someone's sexual equipment? Does Danny Care banter with people on the street by touching their genitals? No? Care would have done his sport better service if he'd just shut his head in his fridge and bantered with the ice tray instead.
Some of the common criticisms made of rugby players by non-rugby folk are that they are as dumb as planks – great, hulking, slab-headed meatheads who struggle to discern which way round to sit on the toilet. Others used to snipe that all the rucking, mauling and binding by large men was latent homosexuality.
And here's Danny Care magnificently confirming both theories. The Exeter Chiefs celebrate by bundling on each other and tapping each other on the genitals? If that is true, words fail me.
The enormous gob of British TV jock Piers Morgan – a name which this column has pointed out previously is an almost perfect anagram of "sperm organ" – then opened wide, saying: "What was a little tickle and all hell broke loose. I thought the whole thing was funny, because I remember Vinnie Jones doing this to Paul Gascoigne. And for 30 years since that picture we've all laughed about it and said, what fun."
Laugh? We couldn't eat our lollies. Thing is, Piers, that Jones' grabbing of Gascoigne's privates was to stop a brilliant football player (Gascoigne) from running all over an ordinary one (Jones). It's called cheating. Let's fall about laughing until we break the seal on our coronavirus masks.
Even Gareth Thomas, the Welsh winger and the first elite player to come out as gay, made light of Marler's moment: "It would've never happened in my day and I'm really upset about that – because if it had I would have never retired!" He then made it worse by apologising to the "very small minority" of people who were offended.
England's Joe Marler is tackled by Wales' Leon Brown during the Six Nations international rugby union match between England and Wales at Twickenham Stadium. Photo / AP
You see, Piers, Gareth and Danny (especially Danny but, really, anyone who defends Marler's actions), the problem is that you all sound as stupid as the Malaysian guy who, in 2018, saw a four-metre python by the side of the road, stopped to pick it up and set off home, carrying it on his motorcycle. The snake countered this invasion of privacy by coiling round this mastermind's neck; locals found the man, strangled to death, next to his fallen motorcycle.
If Joe Marler had committed his action off the field, it could, in theory, be called sexual assault. That alone is reason enough for the sport to wave goodbye to Mr Marler. Not for 10 weeks. Permanently, especially if you add on time for the damage to public perception of the IQ of rugby players.
Genital grabbing has no place in sport and those who seek to characterise it as "banter" not only do their sport enormous disfavour but label themselves about as smart as Mr Pick-Up Python.
And, please, can someone sort out the Exeter Chiefs?
