Old 'Pitbull' Moore would make them crack

SIDELINE CUT:Let's be honest, who in Ireland hasn't enjoyed watching English rugby tear itself apart over the last week. What they need now, though, is the hooker we all loved to hate, writes KEITH DUGGAN

THE RUGBY situation must be truly grave over in Blighty if old “Pitbull” himself is quoting Latin. Brian Moore, who bears the burden of driving opposition teams and fans mad like no other international player over the past 30 years and who, inevitably, turned out to be one of the most interesting, is the latest England old boy to speak up on the diplomatic crisis which has, as they say, “engulfed” English rugby.

Who cares about Eurogeddon? When the inner sanctum of England’s most gilded and privileged has been betrayed, it is time to get Scotland Yard on the case.

“Omne Bonum Ab Alto” Moore declared at the beginning of his column in the Daily Telegraph yesterday. The translation – All Good Things Come From Above – is disappointingly lacking in blood thirst but that hardly mattered: only in a time of true peril will an Englishman turn to Latin.

There was a time when moving speedily from crisis to crisis was the preserve of Irish rugby. The famous quip about the difference between English rugby: “always serious, never fatal”; and Irish rugby: “always fatal, never serious” has come home to roost this week, what with some Julian Assange-type figure moving through the corridors of Twickenham and ransacking secret files with a torch between his teeth and mischief on his mind.

The “revelations” that the English players, disgruntled after drinking one too many pints and throwing one too many dwarves during their World Cup disaster in New Zealand, took the chance to gripe about one another during “confidential” interviews should be no great surprise.

With anonymity guaranteed, who was going to pass up on the chance to get all their grievances off their chest?

Most people in this country will never quite forgive Martin Johnson for forcing then president Mary McAleese to step off the presidential carpet in Lansdowne Road (even if sympathy has paled slightly now that it has begun to dawn on everyone that the good president was earning unbelievable loot while putting up with such diplomatic slights).

Still, it is never a joke when a man loses his job and even if Johnson is such a gargantuan figure in English rugby that he is going to do fine one way or another, his resignation marks the first crushing failure of his sporting career.

You always got the impression, watching Johnson’s glowering countenance up there in those weird little janitorial offices where they put all international rugby coaches nowadays, that he wasn’t so much worrying about the game as just bloody wishing that he could be out there again, ploughing through French and Irish men and generally causing mayhem.

Johnson may be just one of the many former sportsmen who never quite escape the restlessness caused by playing the game so well, and for so long, and now that he has had his “go” at the England job, he must be wondering about what happens next.

The harsh complaints of the players has also led to the departure of Brian Smith, who those with long memories will recall wearing a green shirt during the 1991 Five Nations. In addition Mike Ford comes in for some choice criticism, including the complaint that as defensive coach, he would addle the overburdened minds of the players with “useless statistics”. The phrase conjures up the image of “Fordey” – as the players affably referred to him even as they damned him with faint praise – calling the squad together after training to inform them that 750,000 nine-inch nails were used in the construction of London Bridge.

It would have been useful if they had been able to give an example of these useless statistics. The problem with the criticism is that Ford was doing alright in his career until he happened to sign up for England detail. The players seemed like such an unholy shambles during the latest tournament that you have to take what they say with a pinch of salt – swiftly followed by a sucked lemon and a slammed tequila.

The fallout of the leaked reports have moved the focus from the playing field to the boardroom and now it seems that Rob Andrew, England’s director of rugby, could well lose his title as the man who presided over the general scandal.

Andrew has always seemed like one of those untouchable figures in English rugby. As a player, he managed to keep his shirt starched even on the muddiest of Five Nations afternoons and you always figured that if you looked up “unruffled” in the Oxford English (although Andrew was a Cambridge man) you would find a picture of Andrew dropping a goal rather than a written definition.

He emerged at a time when the English team was filled with sinisterly suave individuals, from Will Carling to Rory Underwood who, if memory serves, flew planes for the RAF when he wasn’t busy dashing along the wing in Twickenham.

It made perfect sense that Andrew, after he “discovered” Jonny Wilkinson at Newcastle, should eventually rise to become the figurehead of English rugby. He simply looked the part and given the population of the country and the importance of the gentleman’s game in toff society, it ought to have been plain sailing.

You can only imagine the cigar room conversations in England’s private clubs about the current state of affairs. Twenty years ago, the idea of an Irishman managing the England rugby team would have been unimaginable and now, both Conor O’Shea and Eddie O’Sullivan are being spoken of as possible contenders. To the Swing Low, Sweet Chariot brigade, a Paddy calling the shots would make for bewildering days.

Whoever gets the job faces what can only be described as a monumentally big task in morale building. When the next England squad is picked, they won’t have a squad so much as a collection of disgraced schoolboys who have been telling tales on one another in the headmaster’s office.

In the mean time, there is the Enid Blyton style mystery of who leaked the reports to solve. The RFU could go through the Yard to investigate. But a quicker way and one which would guarantee success would be to have the Pitbull to don his old England strip – the number two shirt with the collar turned in, socks high, menacing black head-band, ball tucked under arm – and to fix that maniacal stare on the chief suspects.

He could maybe employ Wade Dooley, all 6ft 7ins of him in his old Bobby’s uniform and truncheon, just for “the optics” as the political folk like to call it.

Ten minutes in a room with old Moore on the warpath and anyone would crack. And no better man to hear a confession: the Pitbull worked for years as a solicitor and must be well used to folks spilling the beans.

But then, the England boys have left no beans to spill.

What a mess. And what fun.