WELSH REFEREE Nigel Owens has spoken out about his feelings in the wake of the Bloodgate scandal. The official was in charge of the now infamous Heineken Cup quarter-final between Harlequins and Leinster at the Stoop last season when ’Quins wing Tom Williams bit on a blood capsule and faked injury.

Dean Richards, director of rugby at Harlequins at the time, was handed a three-year worldwide ban for his role in the affair and the orchestration of an attempted cover-up, while the club’s then physiotherapist Steph Brennan was suspended for two years. Club doctor Wendy Chapman was censured by the General Medical Council. Williams was suspended for 12 months but it was reduced to four on appeal. The English club was also fined.

Owens admitted: “Maybe looking back now I am a bit disappointed that I didn’t (do more), but you didn’t expect this sort of thing to happen, even though I had my suspicions as he (Evans) had been warming up.

“If the same thing happens again, I will certainly be more aware what we as officials need to do now. If there is any doubt, then we will have a look at the wound. At the time, though, I didn’t and that is probably my one regret. I could see there was blood in Williams’s mouth. It wasn’t pouring out like you saw when he came off the field. I asked the physio if it was blood and he said ‘yes it is, he has got a cut’.

“If I had seen what the footage showed, of Williams spitting blood out and winking, that would have aroused my suspicions even more and I would have done something then. I probably would have asked to have a look at it and asked Williams to wash his mouth out with water so I could see where the cut was. I would have stopped him and asked for further medical advice.

“But if the medical guy had said to me the cut was behind his teeth, then I would have taken his word because I am not medically trained.”

The referee said that the incident had not put him off the sport and pointed out that Nick Evans missing that late drop-goal attempt was the one plus to emerge from the whole sorry mess. He added: “People who were behind it were found guilty of it, and they had to take the consequences.

“If it was orchestrated by Dean Richards, as has been reported, then he has got to take the consequences. If you live by the sword, you have to die by the sword.”