![]() And then, in the next breath, he seemed to sanction the verbal and physical thuggery that Hartley brings to his play by insisting that his captain is best when he is playing “on the edge.” When Jones appointed Hartley, he admitted that he will “hope and pray” that the decision does not come back to haunt England’s captain. How does Jones think that other referees, knowing the crass behaviour shown to Barnes, are likely to listen to Hartley when, as England’s captain, he wants to dispute a decision made by him? Making someone with a record like this as captain of England, in other words a role model to his players and to rugby-players in England, is madness.ĭoesn’t Jones understand that those incidents on the Shame File, aside from the swearing at Wayne Barnes, could have landed Hartley in jail on assault charges.Īnd the verbal attack on Barnes was a direct and unacceptable challenge to a fundamental principle of rugby, that the referee, on the field especially, must not be physically or verbally abused by a player. He is a serial thug who should not be selected for England, let alone be made the captain and spokesman for the players. In most of the games I have seen Hartley play, as well, he has indulged in constant niggling and dirty play bordering on and often embracing foul play. These infractions have cost Hartley a total of 54 weeks off the field in accumulated bans. Banned for head-butting in 2015: this incident cost Hartley a spot in England’s 2015 Rugby World Cup squad. Banned for abusing a referee (Wayne Barnes) in 2013: this incident cost Hartley a spot in the 2013 British and Irish Lions squad. It makes for shameful reading: Banned for eye-gouging in 2007. The SMH (January 27, 2016) published Hartley’s Shame File. Now we have the newly-appointed England coach Eddie Jones, fresh from his triumph with Japan’s Brave Blossoms at the 2015 Rugby World Cup, going against the conventional wisdom and appointing one of rugby’s leading dickheads, Dylan Hartley, as England’s new captain. The conventional wisdom now in rugby, and many other sports, is that a no dickheads policy is an essential feature for a successful sports team, or team aspiring to be successful. Steve Hansen entrenched this system in his four years as head coach of the All Blacks. Henry created a leadership group within the All Blacks that essentially set the standards and enforced them on players who, occasionally, strayed from the path of rectitude. It has been spectacularly successful since 2008 when the assistant coach of the All Blacks Wayne Smith took the head coach Sir Graham Henry aside and told him the bad behaviour off the field, including binge drinking, had to stop. “No dickheads” sums up this up this philosophy in the vernacular.
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