Chairman's punchline brings house down

Never mind rugby, the rows and rumours of the past week ensured that Chinese Whispers was the favoured game at Gloucester on Saturday. The 7,000 fans at Kingsholm for the Parker Pen Shield clash with Gran Parma were desperate to know how the stain on their club's name following Rob Andrew's allegations of racism would be resolved.

All the talk was of Andrew and the dreaded 'R'word as supporters snatched at snippets of information filtering out of a Press conference. Then, five minutes before kick-off, chairman Tom Walkinshaw strode out to declare that the allegations were unfounded and that the club would back their French hooker Olivier Azam and the fans in any legal proceedings against Andrew. Walkinshaw added that Andrew would be banned from Kingsholm until a public apology was received - a punchline that brought the house down.

From that point on, the mood reverted to match-day type and Gloucester, unbeaten in Europe this season, crushed their Italian opponents to the tune off 99 unanswered points and to the backdrop of coins filling buckets for a fighting fund for possible legal proceedings.