Loose Pass

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with (can't believe we are saying this) soccer.

Has it come to this? Are we really talking about overpaid, time-wasting oafs with nothing other to do than fritter their doubloons away on idle trinkets during the current era of austerity and get themselves into trouble of the most decadent kind?

In some cases yes, in others not. But the clear fact remains that rugby and soccer are coming closer and closer together in nature. That could be a compliment to soccer, but it's more to rugby's detriment.

But at least rugby is getting pro-active about it all.

While soccer's backers continue to blindly throw money they don't really have at any problem that comes along and continue to indulge a player pretty much anything up to actual murder so long as he 'sticks it in ve net, like' Bath's new administrators, perhaps influenced by the historic, almost cathedralesque new HQ of Farleigh house, have turned to the cloth to keep their off-field problems at bay.

Reverend Martin-Lloyd Williams is the lucky man tasked with being a counsellor to Bath's players, as the club continues to rebuild following the Justin Harrison/Matt Stevens cocaine saga and the 'we refuse to take a drug test because we're innocent' saga involving three others.

"Players have to have someone who they respect that they can talk to in confidence," said Bath's outgoing CEO Bob Calleja, who is talking to Premiership Rugby about setting up a general player welfare service for the whole league.

"In the past some players have come to me, some have been to the head coach.

"There are problems. These are young men who sometimes have all sorts of problems and you try to help them."

This is commendable on so many levels. But we also couldn't help a little chuckle at the image of Danny Grewcock walking into a confessional after a game and asking forgiveness for his on-field sins... nor any of the more gnarled forwards for that matter!

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Other rugby players inching towards soccer-style lifestyles? Paul Sackey is up somewhere on the list.

Less reckless than the average soccer player with them, Sackey nevertheless loves his fast cars and wheeler-dealing with them, slowly developing a car-sorting business back in London.

Sackey has recently moved to the Côte d'Azur, with some of the more spectacular cliffside and mountain driving roads in the world at his disposal, so it ought to be a car enthusiast's heaven?

That is, of course, if you have the car. Toulon put cars at their players' disposal, giving Sackey a nice shiny new Volkswagen Golf. Nice hey? Cushy deal?

Not for him. Sackey is not impressed and is trying to offload his gratis lump of German machinery for something a little more... Ferrari-like. It'll take some time, but when he does get it, beware those mountain roads! Read the full interview with Sackey here

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Top of the soccer list though, a new entry at number one, is Mr. Danny Cipriani.

Cipriani, who once had a trial with QPR before turning rugby, has turned to the rather novel technique of playing soccer as a means to keep fit ahead of his sojourn in Australia next year.

He's been taking it seriously too, with QPR playing him in one reserve match and then slotting him into first-team training just ahead of their new season. He's also been training with top club Tottenham Hotspur. He's seemingly being courted by allusion by the managers who have allowed him to play

So... supermodel (now ex-) girlfriend, paparrazzi pics of late nights out at swanky clubs, even pics of a friend/chauffeur driving him home, and now soccer training?

One almost wonders which soccer skills impressed the most though, the ones on the field or off it...

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Elsewhere in the rugby world, the gnashing of teeth over the disparity between New Zealand's yellow card record and Australia's continues, with the tribal nature of SANZAR coming more and more into focus and New Zealand perceived more and more as ring-fencing wrong-doers above the law.

The latest ambiguous stat involves the penalties per yellow card in this Tri-nations so far: New Zealand 43, Australia 7, South Africa 6.

Interesting reading? Well, yes, but it's also worth pointing out that should you make it yellow cards for foul play as opposed to collective, it reads: New Zealand 43, South Africa 12, Australia 14.

Yellow cards for niggly infringements? New Zealand infinity (there's been none), South Africa 12, Australia 28.

What does this tell you? Well, it hints that Australia and South Africa have been guilty of a little more off-the-ball stuff than New Zealand, and have been under greater pressure during the games, something rather born out by the match results. That's what the statistics say.

You can, of course, make statistics prove what you like. We're convinced Tony Woodock should have been yellow-carded and cited for his charge on Saia Faingaa, we're astonished at the first of Drew Mitchell's yellow cards, we're still a little unsure about just how bad Danie Roussouw's boot to Richie McCaw really was. Add that correction to those stats and you've suddenly got a score of New Zealand 21, South Africa 24, Australia 28 for foul play.

So you can prove things both ways... there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. But hasn't it been a great Tri-Nations?

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Meanwhile, in Ulster, the proliferation of South Africans gathers apace, with Johann Muller, BJ Botha Pedrie Wannenburg and Ruan Pienaar all at, or due at, Ravenhill this season.

So the Ulster management, in an attempt to stop the team whining like other South African sides over the past few months (that includes you, Sarries) have attempted a spell of regulation on their new members from down under: Afrikaans has been banned!

"BJ has been a great mate of mine and when we were at the Sharks we were room-mates for about nine years so we know each other really well," said Johann Muller.

"They have banned us from speaking Afrikaans so we won't be doing that but it doesn't matter which country you're from if you're a good rugby player and you can benefit the side then you are the right man for the job."

If only Peter de Villiers thought as equably about referees...

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Finally to Paris, and almost back to soccer. Not much to write about this, but just have a gander at the latest abomination to issue forth from Max Guazzini's fashion designers. No need for bright lights at Stade Français' new stadium, we fancy...

Loose Pass compiled by Richard Anderson