Bloodgate: 10 years on

[D4surfer]

https://www.rte.ie/sport/rugby/2020/060 ... arlequins/

Jerry Flannery joining the cheating bar stewards.

[hugonaut]

https://www.rte.ie/sport/rugby/2020/060 ... arlequins/

Jerry Flannery joining the cheating bar stewards.

I think he's a sharp coach and a really, really good communicator. Hope he does well in his new job.

[blockhead]

This guy is a stain on rugby

Dean Richards disciplinary hearing verdict
Thursday 24 February 2022

Dean Richards of Newcastle Falcons appeared before a virtual independent disciplinary panel yesterday evening (Wednesday February 23, 2022). The panel comprised Martin Picton (chair) with Gareth Graham and Philip Davies.

Richards was charged with conduct prejudicial to the interests of the union and the game contrary to RFU Rule 5.12, relating to his comments in post-match media interviews that undermined the authority and questioned the integrity of the match official following the Newcastle Falcons versus Exeter Chiefs game on February 20.

Richards received a three-week ban from any match-day involvement. He will miss the following fixtures and is also required to do a presentation to his club and a local school or grassroots club about the need for respect for match officials:

26.02 v Bath Rugby

04.03 v Harlequins

12.03 v Saracens

Panel chair, Martin Picton said: “The Panel concluded that the offence was to be dealt with as one arising from disrespect of the authority of a match official and rejected the submission that the words spoken by Dean Richards should be categorised as verbal abuse of the referee.

"The Panel, however, took the view that as a case of disrespect it was a very serious one given the number of issues raised by Mr Richards and the terms in which he expressed himself. He accepted in the hearing that the words he used were ill-considered, clumsy and expressed with a degree of anger. He expressed himself in disrespectful terms in the course of two separate interviews and he accepted that, absent the context his remarks should have had, they were capable of being misunderstood and thus damaging to the game as a whole.

"Mr Richards must have appreciated that what he said would be widely reported with the consequent potential impact on the referee and his standing in the rugby community, coupled with the importance of maintaining the core values of the game. Accordingly, the panel concluded that the case was properly regarded as one that merited a top-end sanction of six weeks.

"The panel did, however, consider that Mr Richards was entitled to the full available mitigation in the light of his acceptance of the charge, his recognition that he should not have spoken as he did as well as the fact that he intends to proffer a full apology to the referee in question.

"The result was that the panel imposed a thee-match suspension from all match-day coaching duties (meaning he can only attend as a spectator), but also directed that Mr Richards should present to the playing and non-playing members of the club on the topic of the need for respect for match officials and that he should undertake a second presentation to a school or local rugby club of his choice so as to get the same message out at a grassroots level.”

[blockhead]

Dean Richards

You probably won't get anything out of me. The only thing I'll say is it was a bad idea, it was the wrong idea. When your gut and instinct says "don't do it," you should't have done it.
Whichever way you look at it, it was the perfect storm which just erupted into...almost an atomic bomb of fury. It should never have happened. I should have just said 'no, it's not going to happen.'
You have a choice whether to do it or not. We as a team and I sort of sanctioned it and allowed it to happen, and was part of it. I shouldn't have done it and your gut instinct is to say no. You should always follow your gut and instinct in situations like that. That was probably the biggest regret of my coaching career, how that unfolded.
It's a learning curve, and you learn from it. Would I do it again? Definitely not.

An infamous element of "Bloodgate" saw Harlequins club doctor Wendy Chapman cut Tom Williams' lip after he had left the field of play, in an effort to make the injury look legitimate. Richards said on the 'Big Jim Show' that the cover-up after the quarter-final was "probably the worst thing" for him. Chapman was ultimately not punished for her role in the incident.

Richards' three years out from rugby leave a major hole in the middle of his coaching career - the only blank years between 1998 and the present day. The Englishman said that the ban from rugby forced him to learn how to operate in a different way, and that it was perhaps an element of "Bloodgate" he looked back on as a positive.

Richards went on to make a rather unexpected point about the public outcry surrounding "Bloodgate," saying that he could not fathom the level of media attention the incident received in the UK. He referenced the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, imprisoned for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the UK in the 1980s, as an example of a story that was drowned out by "Bloodgate":
It's fascinating, first of all, the furore surrounding Bloodgate. On the day that I got sentenced, it was the same day that the guy who'd allegedly blown up the Lockerbie bomb was released from jail. I got the front page and inside page of every daily, and this guy was probably three or four pages in, and the significance of one versus the other...one is a sporting thing, one is people's lives.
It goes to show what a sporting nation we still are, and the importance to us.

[jezzer]

Dean Richards

You probably won't get anything out of me. The only thing I'll say is it was a bad idea, it was the wrong idea. When your gut and instinct says "don't do it," you should't have done it.
Whichever way you look at it, it was the perfect storm which just erupted into...almost an atomic bomb of fury. It should never have happened. I should have just said 'no, it's not going to happen.'
You have a choice whether to do it or not. We as a team and I sort of sanctioned it and allowed it to happen, and was part of it. I shouldn't have done it and your gut instinct is to say no. You should always follow your gut and instinct in situations like that. That was probably the biggest regret of my coaching career, how that unfolded.
It's a learning curve, and you learn from it. Would I do it again? Definitely not.

An infamous element of "Bloodgate" saw Harlequins club doctor Wendy Chapman cut Tom Williams' lip after he had left the field of play, in an effort to make the injury look legitimate. Richards said on the 'Big Jim Show' that the cover-up after the quarter-final was "probably the worst thing" for him. Chapman was ultimately not punished for her role in the incident.

Richards' three years out from rugby leave a major hole in the middle of his coaching career - the only blank years between 1998 and the present day. The Englishman said that the ban from rugby forced him to learn how to operate in a different way, and that it was perhaps an element of "Bloodgate" he looked back on as a positive.

Richards went on to make a rather unexpected point about the public outcry surrounding "Bloodgate," saying that he could not fathom the level of media attention the incident received in the UK. He referenced the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, imprisoned for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the UK in the 1980s, as an example of a story that was drowned out by "Bloodgate":
It's fascinating, first of all, the furore surrounding Bloodgate. On the day that I got sentenced, it was the same day that the guy who'd allegedly blown up the Lockerbie bomb was released from jail. I got the front page and inside page of every daily, and this guy was probably three or four pages in, and the significance of one versus the other...one is a sporting thing, one is people's lives.
It goes to show what a sporting nation we still are, and the importance to us.

Fûck Deano for trying to make it sound like it was someone else's idea that he went along with " against his gut". Nobody with half an idea of him and his coaching style would buy that line. Own your mistake, asshat.

[Flash Gordon]

Dean Richards

You probably won't get anything out of me. The only thing I'll say is it was a bad idea, it was the wrong idea. When your gut and instinct says "don't do it," you should't have done it.
Whichever way you look at it, it was the perfect storm which just erupted into...almost an atomic bomb of fury. It should never have happened. I should have just said 'no, it's not going to happen.'
You have a choice whether to do it or not. We as a team and I sort of sanctioned it and allowed it to happen, and was part of it. I shouldn't have done it and your gut instinct is to say no. You should always follow your gut and instinct in situations like that. That was probably the biggest regret of my coaching career, how that unfolded.
It's a learning curve, and you learn from it. Would I do it again? Definitely not.

An infamous element of "Bloodgate" saw Harlequins club doctor Wendy Chapman cut Tom Williams' lip after he had left the field of play, in an effort to make the injury look legitimate. Richards said on the 'Big Jim Show' that the cover-up after the quarter-final was "probably the worst thing" for him. Chapman was ultimately not punished for her role in the incident.

Richards' three years out from rugby leave a major hole in the middle of his coaching career - the only blank years between 1998 and the present day. The Englishman said that the ban from rugby forced him to learn how to operate in a different way, and that it was perhaps an element of "Bloodgate" he looked back on as a positive.

Richards went on to make a rather unexpected point about the public outcry surrounding "Bloodgate," saying that he could not fathom the level of media attention the incident received in the UK. He referenced the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, imprisoned for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the UK in the 1980s, as an example of a story that was drowned out by "Bloodgate":
It's fascinating, first of all, the furore surrounding Bloodgate. On the day that I got sentenced, it was the same day that the guy who'd allegedly blown up the Lockerbie bomb was released from jail. I got the front page and inside page of every daily, and this guy was probably three or four pages in, and the significance of one versus the other...one is a sporting thing, one is people's lives.
It goes to show what a sporting nation we still are, and the importance to us.

Fûck Deano for trying to make it sound like it was someone else's idea that he went along with " against his gut". Nobody with half an idea of him and his coaching style would buy that line. Own your mistake, asshat.

Yep lack of ownership and whataboutery. I suspect the biggest regret is getting caught.