Chris Rattue: Staged accidents called to account

There's a strange injury afflicting sport in which participants are either directed to have an accident, or doctored to look like they had one.

It has left a lot of blood on the tracks.

Crashgate and Bloodgate have dominated the headlines for weeks, the official verdicts now handed down.

Individual offenders have been hit with punishments while the organisations - the Renault F1 team and the Harlequins rugby club - are left standing, although inevitably their reputations not so.

In Renault's case, they yesterday received a suspended suspension having conceded that Nelson Piquet jnr was ordered to crash his car at the Singapore grand prix in order to assist teammate Fernando Alonso to victory.

Given what has occurred in F1 over recent years, it would be easy to say that nothing should be a surprise in this millionaires' playground. Yet not even those who are most cynical about a sport hit by manufactured finishes, Spygate, Michael Schumacher's flagrant indiscretions et al could believe that the head honchos in a team would ask a driver to deliberately crash a car.

Even if they don't care about the drivers' lives, these are men who absolutely worship their precious bits of flying metal and all the overblown technology that lies within.

Renault - as in the car manufacturer rather than the racing team - must be aghast. French cars hardly need any further dings to their reputation. As for the oft-heard claim that the development of racing machines leads to benefits - including safety measures - filtering down to the ordinary road car ... oops.

Those involved in the Harlequins debacle, where a fake-blood capsule was used to cheat the replacement system, will live with the shame for the rest of their lives. It was a ridiculous thing to do - but the individuals will pay a heavy personal price.

Harlequins' departed rugby director Dean Richards, the former hardman of the England pack, is now way more famous - or infamous - than he ever was in his playing days. Richards was banned from European rugby for three years, his club chairman has resigned, a physio was banned for three years, and a player suspended for four months.

The club's doctor, who has been suspended by the British Medical Council pending an investigation, must look back to her ideals as a young doctor and wonder how she could have got it all so wrong.

For my money, both sports have got it right in rubbing out the perpetrators and leaving the organisations free to continue in competition.

I doubt whether many will be happy with yesterday's Renault verdict, though. Motor racing fans are so passionate about their favourite brands - witness the Ford and Holden rivalry in Australasia - and F1's scandal-hit reputation is so low that there will not be a lot of good will in the air. There were immediate claims that motor racing's governing body, the FIA, has been pressured not to toss Renault out of F1, that fears about Renault pulling out altogether led them to go softly-softly to protect F1's commercial interests.

Commentators close to the motor-racing world might also feel overly obliged to attack the decision, lest others feel that they are part of a rotten sports world seemingly governed by obscene amounts of money which have led to a lack of wholesome competition.

There is a punitive whiff in the air, against the whole F1 shebang. Reasoned arguments could be in short supply.

From what we can make out, though, the decisions to cheat were made by individuals and were not the result of covert policies in either the case of motor racing or rugby.

In other words, just because Ben Johnson cheated on drugs, you don't throw Canada out of the Olympics. On the other hand, there was a very good case - and one never successfully made - that the old East German Olympic team should have suffered that very fate. (Those who claim that Crashgate is the worst case of sports cheating in history might think again by considering the state's role in the politically inspired East German drug conspiracy.)

To punish the team, proven links need to be made in the chain of command to the very top. Renault, to my mind, have been exemplary since the allegations came to light and two offenders quickly quit the team.

These cheats, the actual individuals, were custodians, a position they abused. To suspend the team or club would be unfair on too many innocent parties, including the fans.

If new evidence comes to light which shows people in higher places organised or condoned the actions, then it is time to think and investigate again.

But for now, Renault's crash dummies Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds and Harlequins' bloody fools are the ones who should be cut, as they have been.

* Further to the F1 controversy, the former world champion Damon Hill, whose late father Graham also won the title, asked the question: "Is it [F1] just a very expensive form of entertainment or a proper sport?"

The answer might be that it is a very expensive form of entertainment ... just like a lot of other proper sports.

* The health of New Zealand league is a very fragile business. It actually does rest on a few wonky knees and dodgy shoulders, and in respect of that, it's a relief to see the number of Warriors who are missing from the Kiwi train-on squad.

The Warriors' executive director John Hart promised to play hardball over this, to ensure that all of his players who needed rest and recovery would get it. And Hart is dead right - so this column applauds him in that.

The four nations thingamajig that is about to take place in Britain and France is small beer to the New Zealand audience, and certainly not important enough to derail the Warriors even further as they set about redemption next year.

It's great that the tournament is on and that international league is struggling on in some form or other.

But it's greater still that the Aussie veteran Steve Price and his fellow Warriors Simon Mannering, Jerome Ropati, Sam Rapira and Manu Vatuvei won't be there.

You can't overestimate the task that faces the Warriors next season. They are in a parlous state.

The workhorse Mannering is in desperate need of a rest, and Ropati was so out of form it's unlikely he would have made Steve Kearney's train-on squad anyway, let alone the final 23. Prop Rapira is just about the club's most valuable property right now as they look to rebuild a future.

Let's be honest. Under different circumstances, say a World Cup, a couple of these players might have dragged themselves into another battle in another long season. Just look at Steve Matai's heroics last year.

But the Warriors are New Zealand league and the club needs protection at times. The game here depends almost solely on the fortunes of the Auckland-based NRL club.

Rest and injury recovery are what those players need, which means it is in New Zealand's best interest even if the Kiwis might be weakened. I would also contend that it is in the Kiwi team's long-term interests to get the careers of Mannering and co back on track.

* What a local derby. Manchester United v City was a cracker thanks partially, ironically, to sloppy defending. Manchester United's vaunted centreback Rio Ferdinand produced a howler, a lazy flick, which led to a City goal.

Unfortunately, as things often go in the highly volatile world of soccer, the match did not end well.

City manager Mark Hughes remonstrated with the fourth official over the timekeeping, Alex Ferguson and his club captain Gary Neville seemed to taunt City supporters, Sir Alex played the smart alec again, claiming United could have won by six over their "noisy neighbours", and volatile City frontman Craig Bellamy - the star of the match - struck a supporter who invaded the pitch.

The English Premier League is a magnificent beast, full of naughty children. The hooligans, unfortunately, are already on the pitch.

As for Ferguson's dismissive taunts towards his cross-town rivals, the Sky Blues may live in United's shadow, but they did produce a player called Matt Busby, the revered manager who set up the whole Manchester United dynasty.

* It is time to kick a scrum when it's down ... the IRB just has to look at this blight on the game after the scrum mess which took place at Westpac Stadium on Saturday night.

The test between the All Blacks and Wallabies might have been a particularly bad case of collapsing scrums, but certainly not an isolated one.

It was appalling to watch, and even worse when its effect on rugby is compared with the thrilling ballwork that not only graces the NRL, but survives and even flourishes in the most important matches.

The odd collapsed scrum has always been a fantastic part of rugby, when heaving heavyweights go to battle trying to outdo each other and con the referee. These days, though, collapsed scrums are almost a matter of course.