Recent revelations & criticisms in the media by England rugby players Mike Catt & Lawrence Dallagio and by former England cricket coach Duncan Fletcher – two of them serialisations of forthcoming autobiographies – raise a variety of interesting issues and thoughts, some of them perhaps contradictory and/or irreconcilable.

In rugby circles, at all levels, there tends to be a circle-the-wagons brotherhood mentality and a firm tradition that ‘what goes on tour, stays on tour’. However it is also the case that former players often revel - and in some cases make careers – in re-telling exaggerated but hilarious tales of the skulduggery & pranks (both on and off the field) in which they were involved.

When is the airing of such revelations acceptable? Could it be as simple as just an issue of timing, i.e. whereas straight after the event is wrong, going public at some later point – and when, pray, might that be … a week, a month, a year, a decade subsequently – is okay?

After all, we’re not talking state secrets or national security here, it’s only a game or sport. It seems to me that the authorities concerned have created – or let develop – a complicated minefield in respect of player access to the media. During the Rugby World Cup various players wrote columns ‘from the inside’ – the same happens in cricket and other sports – but what are we saying … that these are fine so long as they don’t criticise anyone, or tell the true (warts and all) story? Plainly there are desirable matters of principle – let alone practicality – involved in a team keeping what happens or is said in the locker room (or behind closed doors) secret from the world, but presumably after it … whether that be the match, the tournament, the series, the tour … is over, there must come a moment where discussion or public comment by those involved is permissible, within the bounds of libel & slander of course.

Mention of defamation prompts the issue of whether law generally has a place in all this. Apparently the RFU have called in their lawyers to see whether there is a contractual route to preventing a future repetition of the Catt and Dallagio criticisms of England’s Rugby World Cup campaign. Personally I don’t see how this can work unless prospective England players become obliged to sign away all image & exploitation rights in advance – and there’s a chance this might be difficult or even impossible, given their club contracts – but, even if this could be done, what about their human rights including those to freedom of expression? We have already seen the complications over West Ham’s supposed (and fudged) acquisition of soccer players Tevez & Mascarino when, allegedly, contrary to the regulations, a third party company owned either the players and/or their commercial rights … and possibly still does.

Personally I suspect there’s a rather more mundane & effective practical solution to the RFU’s problem. Some years ago, when hooker Richard Cockerell – now involved in coaching at his club Leicester Tigers – was an England squad regular, he criticised (now Sir) Clive Woodward after a tour or campaign, mostly about his own non-selection for the starting XV if memory serves. But (my point is) from that moment Cockerell was never considered for the England squad again, let alone picked. I’m not a fan of Woodward but I think he got that right - a ‘one strike and you’re out’ approach may well be the best way of keeping current & aspiring players, however illustrious, in line. Furthermore, frankly, when it comes to retiring players – or those unlikely ever to be picked again anyway (like Catt and Dallagio), who cares? The game is far bigger than any individual player.

Slightly at a tangent from the primary subject of this piece, the whole subject of how the media relates to sport – and vice versa – has to be raised. We all know it’s a corrupt conspiracy between two units (the sporting authorities & teams on the one hand, the media on the other) who need to exploit each other; the former to gain publicity, especially positive coverage, and the latter to gain stories, irrespective of whether they’re good or bad. Players & coaches know the score – when things are going well the media will make them mega-heroes, but when things go badly they’ll become pariahs or worse, and quite possibly one – and then the other - within the course of a few days. There’s a huge element of ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ in this relationship. Managements will brief journalists both on and off the record … and the hacks will play along … but then tensions can develop, often between individual personalities on either side, distrust builds up, criticisms can be made, umbrage taken – and a downward spiral begins. Through regular media coverage, not just of his notorious ‘Fredalo’ incident in the West Indies (when he had to be rescued from a pedalo offshore in the wee hours) we were all aware that sometime England cricket captain Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff likes a drink – as Duncan Fletcher’s new revelations graphically confirm – but the questions I would like answering are (1) why did Fletcher – the England team coach/manager at the time – not deal with Freddie’s drink problems as and when they occurred; and (2) to what extent have the cricketing media, through their necessarily cosy relationships with the powers-that-be within English cricket (including the players), conspired to draw a veil over any number of similar or equivalent incidents of misbehaviour – whether involving drink or not – which have … so far at least … never come to the attention of the wider public, not least because some of them probably occurred at gatherings at which the hacks themselves were present and/or joining in? Despite all the heat & noise currently being generated – accusations of betrayal, lack of respect, the responsibility (or otherwise) of former players, coaches & journalists – I strongly suspect that the sporting authorities and the media are both quietly hoping & praying that it will all die down as soon as possible so that they can return to ‘business as usual’.