"It's vital that rugby does not descend into the cynicism of other sports"

Simulation, obstruction, appealing - there's no end to the gamesmanship prevalent in rugby. But is it getting out of hand? Stephen Jones dishes out a few cards....

- STEPHEN JONES

GAMESMANSHIP AND rugby. How close are they related, how much is the sport infected these days with faking, cheating, milking possible offences or even trying to convince the referee that there has been an offence when there was none?

Will the day ever come when one of those horrible calls for the referee and Television Match Official, as the ball disappears on or near the try-line under heaps of bodies, sees the player with the ball leap back to his feet and confess that he did not actually make it? Fanciful, of course, and on such occasions there is a perfect right to ask the officials to make their call.

Perhaps the old days did have a little more generosity. I can recall Wales dropping for goal in a match at Cardiff and the ball just creeping over the crossbar, and Mike Gibson, the great Irish centre who was standing almost underneath the bar, lifted his hand to tell the referee that the kick was good. That was rather nice, and possibly rather rare.

Arguably the prime example of sharp practice and cheating came when Leicester and Munster played the final of the Heineken Cup at the Millennium Stadium in 2002. There was a scrum near the Leicester line with Munster trailing by 15-9. Peter Stringer, the Munster scrum-half, put the ball into the scrum and it emerged rapidly on the Leicester side. Leicester cleared their lines and soon afterwards the final whistle blew.