BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS
No list of unsporting acts could be taken seriously if Bloodgate wasn’t number one. The scandal that ensued was surely rugby’s darkest moment? A quick recap: Harlequins were 6- 5 behind Leinster in the quarter- final of the Heineken Cup in 2009. With the game slipping away, Quins wanted to get subbed first- five Nick Evans back on the field to try to drop a winning goal. The only way they could do that was through a blood replacement.
No problem, wing Tom Williams had been playing with a fake blood capsule in his sock and when given the signal, he popped it in his mouth and hey presto, Evans was back on.
The Irish side had their suspicions about the validity of the replacement. The Leinster doctor had followed Williams down the tunnel only to have the changing room door slammed and locked in his face. At that point the Quins doctor actually did cut Williams for real with a razor and then the senior management of the club lied for weeks on end about their complicity until a second review finally forced them to admit they were all in on it and had forced Williams to lie to an inquiry.
The team physio lost her job; the doctor was suspended for two years; coach Dean Richards was banned for three years and the club coped a massive fine.
“I took full responsibility for it,” said Richards after being handed his ban. “It was a farcical situation, it really was. It didn’t pan out particularly well on the day. Everybody looked at it and thought, ‘ that’s unreal’, which is what I thought on the touchline as well. But I had to hold my hands up.”
And the worst thing of all..? Evans pushed the drop goal wide and Harlequins lost.