Glasgow must be more open about sanctions

It’s surprising to me that Glasgow haven’t taken more public action against after the recent altercation.

In the old era of amateur rugby, there was almost an expectation rugby players would be badly behaved.

The 1974 British Lions tour featured a number of hotel wreckings, while the 1977 Lions tour hit the headlines for other reasons when a local girl sold her story about her night of passion (or lack of it) with one of the tourists.

But most people put it down to the exuberance of the drunken amateurs.

Times have changed however, and given the substantial salaries that professional rugby players now earn and given the public scrutiny they come under, most of us expect them to set higher standards.

Sadly however, that isn’t always the case.

England players embarrassed themselves in New Zealand but sanctions or lack of them on those misbehaving, wasn’t exactly punitive.

Ewen McKenzie, the Wallabies coach, took more drastic action against his players when they broke the no drinking rule on their recent tour. He suspended the offenders and deprived them of the opportunity of defeating Scotland. It was a very clear marker about how he wanted his team to behave and an attempt to stamp out a problem which has pervaded Australian rugby for some time.

So it’s surprising to me that Glasgow haven’t taken more public action against Ryan Wilson, Sean Maitland, Ryan Grant and Rory Hughes after the recent altercation in Glasgow.

Wilson has now been formally charged by the Procurator Fiscal, but the others have received sanctions at their club which haven’t been publicised.

Like it or not, professional rugby players are now public property and therefore have an implicit obligation to behave properly. If they can’t, they should be punished appropriately.

Not knowing what sanctions have been taken means it’s hard to assess whether their employers have taken the issue seriously or not.

From a rugby perspective, it would not be unreasonable to connect the team’s recent run of poor results as being linked to this problem.

Of course, the incident is subject to police scrutiny so the club’s ability to be open may be compromised.

But I’d like Glasgow to be more overt about how they’ve dealt with the indiscipline of some of their leading players.

At least everyone could try to move on and hopefully the Warriors would return to their winning ways.