GAMESMANSHIP AND rugby. How close are they related, how much is the sport infected these days with faking, cheating, milking possible offences or even trying to convince the referee that there has been an offence when there was none?
Will the day ever come when one of those horrible calls for the referee and Television Match Official, as the ball disappears on or near the try-line under heaps of bodies, sees the player with the ball leap back to his feet and confess that he did not actually make it? Fanciful, of course, and on such occasions there is a perfect right to ask the officials to make their call.
Perhaps the old days did have a little more generosity. I can recall Wales dropping for goal in a match at Cardiff and the ball just creeping over the crossbar, and Mike Gibson, the great Irish centre who was standing almost underneath the bar, lifted his hand to tell the referee that the kick
