Wynne Gray: Game too sanitised at test level

Paddy O'Brien is in charge. Photo / Simon Baker

It's all a huge plot designed to redress the rugby wrongs of the last five World Cups.

The globe spun on its correct axis in 1987 when the All Blacks took the title - but since then there have been all sorts of dastardly plots to destabilise their supremacy.

Anyone who knows anything about footy understands that the All Blacks were stitched up in 1991, poisoned in 1995, duped in 1999, underarmed in 2003 and barnesided in 2007.

But now the global order is being reshuffled.

Kiwi ingenuity means that coaches and staff with connections to the Land of the Long White Cloud have been positioned strategically with teams like Australia, Wales, England, Japan and others, so no "accidents" happen next year in Aotearoa.

New Zealand has also made sure we have infiltrated the refereeing arena at the IRB, where there have been a few previous hiccups.

But with Paddy O'Brien in charge and Steve Walsh set to become an Aussie next year and therefore eligible to whistle the final between the All Blacks and Uruguay, she's all hunky dory.

It's called planning but our old mate Peter de Villiers can't quite see that.

His countrymen were far more brazen in 1995 when they hired some woman to sneak into the hotel kitchens to poison the mighty Blacks' evening cup of soup - and then, to make sure, got police cars with sirens to circle the hotel for 24 hours before kickoff.

Its all a bit nutty like the card-waving shenanigans from the referees in the Tri-Nations.

A crackdown on thuggery is fine. Those who have watched some of the antics of men like Bakkies Botha cannot condone their actions.

But the game has become too sanitised at test level.

People go on about setting examples for children but international rugby is not a game for kids. It is brutal, it is played on the edge, sometimes tempers fray.

If a couple of blokes square off and throw a couple of punches, so what. They will sort it out. They don't need the ref to send them to the naughty chair.

Stiffarm and spear tacklers should get time to think about their indiscipline and if a bloke headbutts an opponent like Botha did at Eden Park this season, send him off.

Putting players on report might work but it could encourage greater violence if it is a championship decider or RWC final.

Owen Franks is only a young bloke - doing rather well too as a test prop - brought up in the modern world of non-violent participation but he can't see the problem with a bit of biff.

He was incredulous when he was sinbinned for a careless tackle in Melbourne.

It all seems a little overzealous when we want the sport to keep moving. We don't need all the lectures, 14 playing 15 and all that sort of stuff.

Penalise blokes for sure, warn them on the run, but let the sporting gladiators go about their business.