Violence in Sport/The double standard: Johnny Wattersonon why legitimate aggression is bound at times to erupt into lawbreaking

Having participated in the Spanish Civil War, George Orwell knew a thing or two about fighting. "Serious sport," he observed, "has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words, it is war minus the shooting."

For many, George was spot on. The association between violence and sport has always been buddy-buddy. In rugby, physical aggression and discipline coexist like like twins in your regular dysfunctional family. Sometimes the glue just doesn't hold.

Rugby has always had a bipolar personality. Depending on context, timing, motives and outcome, violence outside the laws of the game is variously tolerated, celebrated or reviled. Sometimes it is co-ordinated.

The All Blacks' attack on Brian O'Driscoll, which dislocated his shoulder in the first Lions Test of the 2005 tour to New Zealand, looked suspiciously premeditated.

Occasionally attacks are tactical, and even the most triumphant and admired are cynical and well planned.

The famously prearranged "99" call used by Willie John McBride's Lions on their 1974 tour of South Africa was the signal for an orchestrated, all-out assault on the South African players. It was based on the correct assumption that the referee would not send off all the Lions if they choreographed the violence, each player attacking the nearest opponent.

It was all good, clean, manly violence, actually experimental for its day.

If the French club Dax travelled to Montpellier, the players would expect to be beaten up, and not only on the scoreboard. Wimp out? Never.

And why was Young Munster's ground affectionately called the Killing Fields? Rugby's unpredictable twin, violence, is both respected and unwelcome.

Hard men are equally admired. They are the folk heroes of tomorrow. Peter Clohessy, who received a 26-week ban for stamping on the head of Olivier Roumat, is a demi-god for Munster folk. Trevor Brennan is a man of granite, a Leinster and Toulouse folk hero, even before last week's incident. Eric Cantona's self-destructive effort (the two-footed lunge was a little too coarse to be truly French) at summary justice was seen as both admirable and offensive.

And while the Manchester United playmaker was one of the first to bring violence to the fans rather than the other way around, he is not the only one. Attacking spectators is not as rare a pastime as you might imagine. Becoming an unwanted part of stadium entertainment has had a documented history.

In April, 2005, a fan at Fenway Park, Boston, threw beer into the face of the Yankees' Gary Sheffield as he fielded a ball, prompting Sheffield to take a swing at the fan.

In September, 2004, the Texas Rangers pitcher Frank Francisco threw a chair at a fan during a game against the Oakland Athletics in Oakland's Network Coliseum, breaking a woman's nose.

In November, 2003, the Manchester United goalkeeper Fabien Barthez punched a fan who ran toward him during a match against Southampton.

In May, 2000, a fan at Wrigley Field, Chicago, grabbed a cap off the head of the Los Angeles Dodgers' Chad Kreuter, starting a melee; Dodgers players, including Raul Mondesi, Gary Sheffield, Darre Dreifort, Adrian Beltre and Todd Hundley, entered the stands to fight fans.

Then in June, 2000, the same Hundley had food and beer thrown at him all through a game in Phoenix, prompting the Dodgers crew of Mondesi, Sheffield, Dreifort, Beltre, and Hundley to go into the crowd and engage in a mass brawl.

In November, 2004, during a basketball game involving the Pacers and Pistons, a spectator, John Green, threw a cup at the Pacers forward Ron Artest. Artest responded by charging into the stands and confronting the man he mistakenly believed was responsible, triggering a violent response from nearby spectators.

Pacers' Stephen Jackson and David Harrison followed Artest. Several fans were struck by Pacers players, while a few, including Green, retaliated with punches of their own. Others threw cups of beer and soda at Pacers players.

Two spectators angrily walked onto the court. One, AJ Shackleford, confronted Artest, who was making his way back to the court. Artest punched him, which started another melee that eventually included several Pacers players, most notably Jermaine O'Neal, who was shown on video striking another fan, later identified as Charlie Haddad.

It was estimated nine spectators were injured; two were taken to hospital.

Artest was suspended for 86 games (73 regular-season, 13 post-season), the longest ban in the history of the NBA for an infraction not related to drugs or gambling. Stephen Jackson was banned for 30 games, Jermaine O'Neal for 25 (later reduced on appeal to 15), Ben Wallace for six, Anthony Johnson for five, Reggie Miller, Chauncey Billups, Elden Campbell and Derrick Coleman for one apiece.

It happens. And do you know what? Opinions on the issue of who was right and who was wrong were totally divided.

Of course, fighting with fans, and thus turning them from spectators into participants, is a manifest affront to the way players are supposed to behave in the eyes of those who invest money to make more money from the sport.

But the real crime is in the blurring of lines rather than in the act of aggression itself. The real mistake is making a bad call, abandoning good judgment.

The violent acts themselves are not so much the point - in rugby people get punched all the time; what matters is where and when and to whom the violence happens. The error is the failure to respect the boundaries.

Including unwilling participants is simply a no-no. On the pitch little is made of it. Hardness is sought out and exploited, and if rough-house control is the only way to win a game then so be it.

Roy Keane was the enforcer for Manchester United. The Armagh full back Francie Bellew is no shrinking violet. But in terms of physical aggression, rugby leads the way.

Since the game turned professional and was given a new set of clothes, marketing has become king. Image calls the shots. Product placement pays the bills. Sponsorship and television drive the sport and all of them together make rugby a saleable brand.

Rugby has come from being a virtual cottage industry to retailing on a global scale. It has become something of a sports supermodel; blood and muscle are the new anorexia. To sustain that, the house, however testosterone-fuelled, must be kept in order.

Over the last 12 months the ERC have banned eight players for violence in the Heineken European Cup.

In December, 2005, Ian Evans stamped on an opponent's knee and received an eight-week suspension. In the same month Wales's favourite luvvie, Gavin Henson, got to feel what it was like to break a nose when he elbowed the Leicester prop Alex Moreno during a game full of bitterness. That got him a 10-week ban. In February, 2005, Sale's Epi Taione invited an 18-week ban when he bit Munster's Denis Leamy. In October of the same year Brent Cockbain stamped on Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe to ship a three-week ban. And the following month Salvatore Perugini, not for the first time - as Ireland's Peter stringer would verify - head-butted an opponent and drew down a five-week ban.

Leinster's Aussie lock Owen Finegan was given three weeks for stamping on an Edinburgh secondrow's leg.

Ross Ford's punch and Alan Quinlan's stamp earned one week and six weeks respectively.

And most of the outrage about those incidents came from teams complaining about the severity of the punishments.

This week several more citations arrived in from the ERC. Daniel Larrechea, the Sale Sharks fullback, is due to appear before a disciplinary committee following his side's match against the Ospreys. Larrechea has been accused of eye gouging and spitting. David Couzinet, the Biarritz lock is also in the dock, for stamping in his club's game against Northampton.

The regularity and frequency of the citations and bans make them part of the game. Clearly the ERC, and the International Rugby Board, outlaw the violence, and yet the game does not succeed in stopping it.

We profess to never like the look of it. We don't like being reminded that it's part of us. The savage in us challenges our self-assumed sophistication, and our preference is to put distance between it and us.

Actually, the French understand it better than the rest of us. They tolerate passion and all the unseemly baggage it entails. The statement from Toulouse about the incident involving Brennan and the spectator Patrick Bamford may have been deemed self-serving but there were shards of it that were typically French.

"It needed a provocation to make him act that way, which is not acceptable but understandable," said the club.

The word "understandable" would have been left out by a non-French club.

"There are words and behaviour that can hurt people deeply," it added, almost touchingly.

Whatever happens in the ERC inquiry into Brennan's foray into the crowd, we expect they will find the incident unusual and disconcerting. We also expect they may want to discourage such excursions - unless for a player to hug his mother or kiss a baby. But we don't know. We do know it has happened before and we shouldn't be surprised. We also know that Brennan's image, like that of Clohessy, will remain intact. He will stay a folk hero. His pub in Toulouse will continue to sell copious pints.

George Orwell would understand.