A sad day as nine weeks of shock and revulsion f inally end

THE last nine weeks led everyone in Irish sport, but most especially Ulster Rugby and the IRFU, to a day that was profoundly sad.

The last nine weeks were alarming and dispiriting. Yesterday, at Belfast Crown Court, two young men were found not guilty of rape, one young man was found not guilty of exposure, and a fourth young man was found not guilty of perverting the course of justice.

Yesterday, a 21-year-old woman, the complainant, was left to face into the rest of her life. Yesterday, everyone in Irish sport, and those beyond our sporting communities, took a deep breath after nine weeks of evidence — from the young woman and the defendants, and from 10 police officers, two doctors, a forensic scientist and a taxi driver — that we wished we never had to hear. But it is important that we did. And it is more important that the shock and revulsion that this country has experienced through the length of this trial is not lost on us.

The young woman in this case was facing more than four defendants.

As she stated to a friend, long before the trial ever began, she was facing a giant organisation, a huge community called Ulster Rugby.

But she was also facing something that is much more than a rugby club.

She was facing a culture — and within that an age-old, enshrined belief that boys will be boys.

In Martin McDonagh’s Oscar winning movie, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, a wounded mother played by actress Frances McDormond has a two-minute monologue that is searingly relevant this morning.

McDormond’s character Mildred Hayes, who is desperately seeking justice for her daughter, who was raped and murdered some months earlier, comes across a local priest sitting in her kitchen talking to her son, but before Fr Montgomery gets the chance to berate her for her actions, Mildred Hayes has something even more important that she wishes to lay on her unexpected visitor.

Mildred Hayes talks about ‘colours’ and ‘clubhouses’, and she talks about ‘gangs’ — and Mildred, before tossing the priest out of her house, tells the Catholic Church and tells all of us who wear a certain colour or enter a clubhouse or cheer on a team that we all share a particular responsibility when we are part of a larger community of people, whether we care to admit to it or not.

We all help in some way to create, or tolerate, a culture. We then either chose to ignore sordid and bawdy side elements of that culture, or completely disown those elements at a time of our choice.

But Mildred tells us to think twice about that.

While a great number of people in Ulster Rugby may be relieved at the acquittal of Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding yesterday, a great number of that same community should have been dismayed that only one of the pairing expressed at some length his regret at what had occurred in the first instance.

Jackson thanked his family and everyone in his corner these last two months but ‘out of respect’ for his employers did not wish to make any further comment. His solictor added that Jackson’s priority was to return to work and get back on the ‘rugby pitch’.

Olding was the one who expressed his ‘deep regrets’ and apologised for ‘the hurt’ that was caused to the complainant. While he should be credited with doing so, Olding’s future as a rugby professional — same as Jackson’s — remains in some doubt as the IRFU now state that they will conduct an internal review with the two players and that, in the meantime, the pair will remain relieved of all duties.

QUite how the IRFU can come to a conclusion that Jackson and Olding showed sufficient ‘respect’ — to use Jackson’s word — to their Ulster and Ireland teammates, to the supporters of both teams, and to their own employers, is difficult to see.

AFTER nine weeks of revelations of excessive drinking, abhorrent sexual antics, and further indecent commentary on social media, Jackson in particular appears to be an optimistic young man in the extreme in thinking he has every right to trot back onto a rugby pitch as soon as possible.

Undoubtedly, the two players have paid a huge price for what happened on that night in Jackson’s south Belfast home in June of 2016, as has the young woman who visited that same home.

The further price that three of them, and also the two other defendants might have to pay, still remains to be seen as everyone seeks to rebuild severely damaged lives.

It is right, of course, that they should be allowed to do so — to enter a period of rehabilitation, and hopefully reach a place in all of their lives where that night in June, 2016 and also the many awful days over the last nine weeks, do not continue to cause destruction.

The eyes of Irish rugby supporters, and those who support and love Irish sport, now turn to the IRFU who have the extremely difficult task of building a review committee — made up of senior members of the Union and Ulster Rugby — and stepping forward. This committee bears an enormous responsibility.

But their duty is no different to the responsibilities of all of those who dedicate their lives to fostering rugby, and Gaelic football and hurling, and soccer. Each of these games and their communities have been forced into periods of selfexamination after behaviour amongst their own, which, while not as shocking or reprehensible as that which have been recounted in a Belfast court these last nine weeks, have nonetheless been deeply troubling.

Jackson’s solicitor stated yesterday that his client suffered the ordeal of rape allegations because of his high profile as an international rugby star, and he also highlighted ‘vile commentary’ on social media. But far away from the international stage, just last October, a group of young men foolishly allowed themselves to be compromised by celebrating a championship success with two topless strippers and having their sordid antics in a local public house displayed on social media.

The Kilkenny County Board called an emergency meeting and launched its own investigation into the incident, but the young men involved left themselves and their families embarrassed, and their teammates and their club tarnished, by their decision.

The people who have given their lives to that same club were left to pick up the pieces. As the families and teammates of Jackson and Olding, and Ulster Rugby itself, must now get on with their lives and with the job of ensuring that the ‘respect’ that Jackson himself spoke of yesterday is actually something that is upheld, and put into practice.

We are all part of a club, or of a ‘gang’ as Mildred Hayes tells us.

And we all have a responsibility for the actions and the utterances of every single person in that same club.

We all need to protect one another, and we all need to ensure that others who are not part of that club are further protected from a culture that might be threatening or endangering. Yesterday was a sad day for everyone in Irish sport.

But, also, it was a day which can help guide us.

The period of review by Ulster Rugby and the IRFU should not last very long. Nobody wants that, and prolonging the agony their players endured these nine weeks is unnecessary.

A community needs to stand strong and stand up, and tell Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding there is no way back for them as professional athletes.