We thought we had problems in our rugby, but English rugby is in absolute tatters. I have attached the full article. Be warned, it does go on a bit, but it does show the extent of the problem that finally came to a head at the World Cup. Our problems pale into insignificance when you read this!

Daily Mail

The Rugby Football Union will leave no stone unturned. There will be a full investigation into what went wrong and all the guilty parties will be named and shamed.

They are talking about the source of the Twickileaks here, of course. The measures required to address the shambolic, drunken, greedinspired mess that was supposed to be England’s World Cup campaign can wait. The priority for the RFU right now is to find the ‘mole’ who released three damning reports into their spectacular failings.

In an extraordinary week for rugby, the craziest aspect is that the RFU actually believe the real scandal is the fact that we have all been able to find out just how catastrophic things were behind the scenes, not the disgraceful antics in New Zealand themselves.

‘The leaking is as about as low as we can get,’ said director of elite rugby Rob Andrew. ‘I don’t think there is much lower we can go as an organisation.’

Good grief man, wake up. You are spectacularly missing the point here. That is like Noah standing on the bridge of the Ark, gazing at a world submerged under water and then moaning about the dripping tap in his bathroom.

How the documents came into the public domain is a footnote in history; it is an asterisk. What is in those reports matters most.

And the issues are catalogued there in black and white – a chronic lack of leadership, absence of discipline and a woeful structure of coaching and administration, all of which led to a fundamental failure to provide what any winning side needs.

Judge Jeff Blackett, the RFU’s chief disciplinary officer, joined in the chorus of irrelevant waffle: ‘It is important that we investigate it (the leak) properly, find out who has broken this confidence and take appropriate action,’ he said. ‘It is probably the most serious breach in my eight years as disciplinary officer.’

This from a man who dealt with rape allegations levelled against four members of an England touring party, the Bloodgate outrage and drug bans for five Bath players. And now he thinks reports being released without authority is rugby’s ‘most serious’ issue?

How predictable that the RFU would spew out these ludicrous smokescreens about an internal conspiracy against Andrew and laughable tosh that remarks made by players ‘were taken out of context’.

Actually, for once, everything has been laid out in full without public relations filters, without censorship, without being redacted by Twickenham’s politburo and the leaks provided a truer – and undoubtedly uglier – picture of the England set-up than any sanitised version could ever have achieved.

When I wrote about how I believed Mike Tindall had behaved like a berk in New Zealand, there was the usual huffing and puffing from the Shires about how there was ‘no harm in having a beer’, ‘media witchhunt’, and the like.

In fact, the press coverage only scratched the surface. A significant proportion of the squad expressed their deep dismay at the way key figures in the party treated the World Cup like an extended stag night.

Some players hated the drinking games and the manner in which a clique of senior figures openly sneered at anyone who wanted to train and dedicate themselves to the tournament.

Some squad members who supposedly took part in the drinking game culture were even named – led by Tindall, they are Nick Easter, Mark Cueto, Dylan Hartley, Chris Ashton and Ben Foden.

We also heard the coaching was at a ‘schoolboy level’; senior players were more interested in chasing money than glory; and how they complained about their sponsors and about one another, too.

So it goes on. But senior rugby figures still cling on to this idea that the leaks are as damaging as the events.

Damian Hopley, chief executive of the Rugby Players’ Association, said he was devastated the players’ confidentiality had been betrayed, adding many were nervous about expressing privately held views.

‘If England wants to regain its status as a respected rugby nation, it is imperative that we show some much needed integrity. What example does this set to the game? It is an absolute disgrace,’ said Mr Hopley.

Yes, where’s the integrity? I’m sure many players were straight on to their publishers with similar complaints, hopefully in time for a new chapter to be added to the paperback version of their recent books.

England captain Lewis Moody was so concerned by issues of confidentiality and integrity that his book was being serialised in the press before he’d even had time to unpack the suitcase he brought back from New Zealand.

Moody could not wait to tell anyone who would listen about how he had been drunk at key moments throughout his career and regale the public with all that confidential integrity of his.

Now, usually, the only time the buck stops at the RFU is when someone stashes it behind the bar. But not any more. The besieged Andrew, every coach, and many more on that touring party are being called to account for their part in the debacle. The resignation of Martin Johnson has not allowed them to walk away unscathed.

The prevailing attitude in the dysfunctional England camp is encapsulated by one incident where the RFU were in such a distrustful panic about their own squad they were prepared to pay a hotel worker hush money of almost £15,000 just to make some spurious accusations of sexual assault go away.

After the woman visited a room to retrieve a walkie-talkie taken by the players, she concocted a story about how she had been accosted and trapped there. Apparently this was to explain to her mother how she had later got drunk, fallen off a bar stool and ended up in hospital.

Luckily, James Haskell was filming a video diary. That proved to be the saving of not only him, but Ashton and Hartley, too. The 80-second clip showed them teasing the woman, asking for chocolate, making some lewd joke about ‘Down Under’, but no more. It was childishly crude, but there was certainly no assault and, for once, Haskell’s mission of shameless self-promotion had a purpose.

Without that camera, three England players could have been on sexual assault charges – or found themselves complicit in a blackmail attempt that would have looked like an admission of guilt. The RFU advised the England players to pay up. It was advice the trio ignored.

Yes, the players were oafish. But this woman was a money-grabbing horror and the spineless RFU had allowed her to call the tune, which was a disgraceful dereliction of duty.

Without Twickileaks, none of this would have come to light. The suits would have filed their reports, issued the bland result of some internal inquiry and moved on, safe in the knowledge that the usual array of Range Rovers would still turn up in the Twickenham car park come the Six Nations tournament.

Now everything and everyone is under review, which is why they are squealing. At the moment, Andrew remains in his job as elite rugby director, despite no discernible evidence of elite performance or direction.

But the signs are not good that he can cling on. He continually claims this calamity was not his fault, finding it is easy to delegate both authority and responsibility.

Another certainty is that from this point on, rugby union can no longer look down its nose at footballers in a condescending manner. The game is up. Posh lads misbehave, too. They can be just as crude, just as drunk and just as greedy.

And for all the hypocritical poppycock about breaches of confidence at the top, the fact the RFU are finally being made to face up to some uncomfortable truths might actually do the game a great deal of good in the long run.