Swansea's poor excuse for a punch

In an attempt to excuse Scott Gibbs for punching an opponent last week, Swansea coach John Plumtree came up with a strange explanation.

'Rugby,' he declared, 'was getting soft enough without citing a player for something like that.' According to the opposition coach, Gareth Nicholas of Caerphilly, the something like that amounted to a 'smack in the mouth' for his club's back row forward, Andrew Williams. The issue here is not whether the game has gone soft but a point of law.

Punching comes under the category of foul play with a penalty ranging from one week to 12 with three-weeks the norm.

The Gibbs incident was missed by the referee, David Davies.

Under Welsh Rugby Union rules, he had time to study the punch on videotape before deciding against taking the option of retrospective action. If Mr Plumtree could not bring himself to condemn the incident, he had no business condoning it.

While the Welsh Lion escaped Scot-free, Martin Johnson, on the other hand, will face an RFU disciplinary panel charged by Saracens with punching his England colleague, Julian White, and kneeing Duncan MacRae during Leicester's win over the Watford club last week. Ironically, rugby has never been cleaner but the citing procedure is still far from perfect. Why, for instance, does the RFU not leave all citings to an independent commissioner?

'Having a neutral third party to judge these issues would seem to me to be the way to go,' said Johnson, via his website column.

Earlier this week, the England captain sounded as though he might have been tempting fate.

'Someone's just reminded me that I've now got five games for Leicester in the next 26 days,' he said 'No rest for the wicked.' Exactly how much, or how little, will now be determined by a three-man RFU tribunal.