Sir, - The only surprising thing about the recent drugs in rugby controversy was that anyone was surprised. For the past three years, since the International Rugby Board illegally voted for unrestricted professionalism, the story of the game has been one of unrelieved squalor. Rampant commercialism has replaced the values of a unique amateur sport, and the reports of your rugby correspondent have frequently more to say about television rights, sponsorship deals and players; contracts than about the game. Rugby has become increasingly violent and brutal, and the present spectator-friendly game with its "big hits", endemic cheating, unsportsman-like behaviour and basketball scores is a travesty of that played for over 170 years.
Professional rugby union is a contradiction in terms. Once people are paid to play, it becomes a different game, just as professional boxing is different from the amateur sport. Will Carling is one among many who believe that the rules governing professional and amateur rugby should not be the same. By extension, there should be different administrations, as one of your correspondent suggested recently.
The part played by the IRFU in all of this has been shameful. Initially among the staunchest defenders of amateurism, they predicted in a formal statement in May 1995 the malign effects which would follow the introduction of professionalism. Three months later, they executed a Uturn and signed on to the "open era". Since then, they have knowingly presided over the destruction of the traditions and practice of the game in this country.
The case of Keith Wood is illustrative. Mr Wood is a professional rugby player and undoubtedly has his own agenda. However, his situation has revealed what one long suspected; that it is impossible for a young man to aspire to playing rugby for his country unless he agrees to accept payment and to act as a clothes' horse for commercial interests. In many ways, this is the basest betrayal of all. - Yours, etc., Paul P. Hogan,
Claremont Road, Sandymount, Dublin 4.