Bad boy Pape signs off in inimitable style
PETER JACKSON reveals his exclusive table of Europe’s saints and sinners
Gerard Cholley, ex-paratrooper, heavyweight boxer and allround slugger, has never been slow to hanker after the good old, bad old days when referees pre-‘Fearless’ Fred Howard tended to turn a collective blind eye.
The old French prop’s observation that ‘the violence has gone from the game’ could be tracked all the way back to his retirement and therefore interpreted as the ultimate in irony. He once flattened four Scotland forwards during a Five Nations match at Murrayfield and was allowed to keep punching for the entire 80 minutes.
Had he been born two generations later, Cholley would have spent the modern game in long periods of animated suspension, doing time. Another French tight forward with a disciplinary record as long as the proverbial arm could tell him a bit about that.
Pascal Pape has retired, leaving a mark which can be found in Stade Francais’ place at the bottom of our exclusive Fairplay table or, in their case, decidedly unfair. The 36-year-old France lock’s contribution included not one red card but two over the final weeks of his long career.
In doing so Pape, according to my records, is only the third player of the professional era to be sent off five times. Julian White, a member of England’s World Cupwinning squad in 2003, set the bar, so to speak, before retiring five years ago to his farm in the Midlands.
Pape’s collection of yellow cards, considerably larger than White’s relatively modest total of ten, puts him in roughly the same ball park as another Top 14 lock not noted for pussyfooting around the fringes of a ruck, Jamie Cudmore. The Canadian bear managed to negotiate his final season without allowing one last dismissal to prevent Oyonnax from bouncing straight back from relegation.
The three European Leagues witnessed twice as many red cards as in the previous season – 56 against 28 in 2015-16. It could be argued that Pape’s impact on the 100 per cent increase went beyond his reds in the Top 14.
His over-reaction to a slap in the face from Phil Burleigh during a European Challenge Cup tie at Murrayfield did nothing to dissuade the referee from sending off Edinburgh’s Kiwi fly-half, the Scottish team’s solitary red of the season.
Ospreys, counted out by Munster in the PRO12 play-offs, are to be congratulated for showing the rest the cleanest pair of heels, not that they will find any compensation in that for allowing their season to run off the rails during the last two months.
It is to their credit that their players spent fewest time in the sin-bin than any other club, one every four matches over the course of a nine-month season and a disciplinary record without the stain of a red card or a citing.
Connacht, Europe’s cleanest team over two of the last four seasons, would have returned an identical record to Ospreys had Bundee Aki not wound up on a misconduct charge over remarks made to Welsh referee Ian Davies during and after the defeat by Leinster in mid-April.
The ensuing three-week ban was enough to put Wasps in second place by virtue of having played six games more than the outgoing PRO12 champions.
The Rugby Paper’s fairplay table for Europe, based on all matches played by the 38 clubs across the three major League competitions – Premiership, PRO12, Top 14. Each red card and citing proven case for a sendingoff offence missed by the officials carry 3 points, yellow cards 1.