This post is a little about the dark side of the sport of Rugby,and since I talked about the horrendous act of Chris Simon last week, its only fair that this gets a little light of day as well.

Ronan O’Gara (flyhalf for Ireland and his club team Munster) has been the victim of two of the bigger on-field attacks in recent memory. I wish I lived where the international rugby coverage was better, but from all I have seen, read and heard, he does not seem to be a dirty player and is a pretty good guy… and world class player. Back in 2001 he got jumped by a member of the Australia national team. O’Gara took the first punch, figuring he would be the bigger man and that it was just going to be a one punch cheap shot. He was damn wrong and took about 10-11 solid punches to the head before anyone did anything. Some people called him soft for not fighting back, but I can understand why someone might think that someone is just pulling a “Mello” punch and run attack and for the good of the team, take the punch and let the other team play short a man for the rest of the match.

That attack was bloody, brutal, and uncalled for. Now it would seem that roughly 6 years later rugby got another black eye and O’Gara was again the victim. This time, an unidentified Scottish player wrapped his arm around O’Gara’s throat (who coincidentally scored all of Ireland’s points against them) until O’Gara turned blue and lost consciousness. Right now though, Brian Fowler, who is the commissioner in charge as ruled that he found “no incidents of foul play”. I really don’t know how much more foul you can get, taking one look at the color of O’Gara’s face in the picture makes it damn clear that someone did this on purpose. I cannot imagine a legitimate accident on the pitch that would result in choking someone out. This whole thing stinks, and its making Gary Bettman and the NHL look great right now.

It also does not bode well for Scottish rugby, who have not identified the player responsible or even put out an anonymous statement from the player responsible (to the best of my knowledge) and in addition don’t seem to be too concerned in the picture considering the complete panic being displayed by their opponents. Total bollacks, a nightmare for the sport’s reputation, and about one of the worst things that could happen with the Rugby World Cup only months away.