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Not at the game I went to see last week at Twickenham. Sold out 82,000 stadium, 'Quins v Wasps was overshadowed by the sort of spitting incident you expect from South American soccerists at the World Cup, and then a tackle that really did pay scant regard to Mike Brown's safety and could have...

Absolute bollocks. Players only dive to buy free kicks and always have done. Playing to the whistle has also always been done, this kicking the ball out for the opposition is a relatively new thing and didn't really happen in the 80s when I started watching regularly. Regardless, this is a...

No he didn't, he just played to the whistle.

If a referee did this out of the blue, he'd be accused of ruining the game unnecessarily. So whilst I agree it would be nice to get to the point where that sort of thing can happen, I'd say there needs to be a cultural shift first, towards a place where the referee is respected by and large.

I agree. I too referee rugby matches regularly (tag rugby at U8s level, specifically) and the coaches ram it down the throats of all the kids that you don't even question things, you just accept the decision. Sometimes that is hard because of the perceived injustice, but it helps in the long...

I won't disagree with the bare fact that referees are treated with a lot more respect in both rugby codes, but in fairness rugby lends itself far better to respecting the ref in the first place. This is because it is a game where territory is far more important than possession, so with gobbing...