you jumped off a ferry in your pants ?

[anneasquith]

you jumped off a ferry in your pants.............. why ?

[SeaJayPea]

They'd been to a winery. Think that explains it.

[anneasquith]

silly move, and dangerous. !

[jno]

demob happy, I expect. He probably wouldn't have realised the ferry was about to start going backwards, so wouldn't have known it was dangerous.

[snags]

No disaster occurred... he was given a police warning and fined. Case closed.

[ichkeria]

What I find unbelievable is: here's a group of players who've just had a less than uplifting experience: months of hard work down the drain, and a reputation - fair or otherwise - for being a bunch of prats. Time, surely, to take stock, be humble and lie low.
So what does he do: gets drunk (almost certainly) and jumps off a ferry.
Brilliant.

[chelle7272]

Yes but if they had been playing well I'm sure the press would not have kept up with stories about their actions off the pitch, which were daft but no worse than other English sportsmen.

[ichkeria]

That's my point though, they weren't playing well though, were they? And in this particular instance they'd just been knocked out of the tournament earlier than they'd hoped. So not a great time to play up to the image.
Just because it's no better than other English sportsmen, if true, is a pretty poor defence, and doesn't say much about the rest.

[anneasquith]

will the coach keep his job i wonder ?

[snags]

Probably not...

[ichkeria]

It's been pointed out that the RFU are such a mess at the moment that there is, potentially, no one with the authority to sack him.
I suspect he will resign in the next few days, after which a new set up will be put in place.
Although I am an Irish supporter and have been enjoying the chaos, I do feel sorry for Johnosn: he probably should not have been given the job in the first place. He should surely be involved in a future set-up, just not as head coach.
And who gave him the job? Rob Andrew. In my opinion he's the one really to blame. It seems to me that the RFU has been beset with chaos all the time he's been involved.

[Mugget]

what a nob-end!.. and people say that footballers are idiots.

[emmie]

no idea, apart from too much vino, could have been a different story if the ferry was reversing, and then goodbye to the new bloke

[jno]

Tuilagi was one of England's few successes in the cup. He's 20, he probably had a bit much wine, he went for a swim when he shouldn't have (but probably without realising there was any risk involved).

This is pretty harmless behaviour, really, and at the very very minor end of England's worries.

[ichkeria]

I'm not sure I agree that it's harmless: it was incredibly dangerous. Luckily he was OK.
I do agree that it's hardly a major crime, along with the other stuff that's been going on, but in the context of what had gone before .. mind-numbingly reckless.
The impression - and it may be unfair - is of a bunch of college students larking around oafishly (and illegally - if you recall the ball-swapping and the gum shield nonsense). Of course none of it matters if the fans and the press are propitiated by performances on the field: look at Cory Jane: he rescued a bad situation for himself by having a blinder after his bender (!), but that wasn't the case with England.

[jno]

that's true, it was playing rubbish that brought them down. But cheeking chambermaids (if that's what they did) will always look bad.

Ten to one Tuilagi didn't realise that what he was doing was dangerous, though. So it was silly but not lunatic.

The gum shields and ball swapping are against world cup rules but not normal rugby rules, as far as I know. But I've no idea why they chose to break them - that was really stupid.

[joggerjayne]

What goes on tour ...

[cazzz1975]

rugby players = knuckle draggers.

[SeaJayPea]

Ichkeria - spot on about RA. I'd bin him then let Johnson run things without the interference he was getting.

'Knuckle draggers' Cazz? As opposed to the intellectuals who represent England at football, perhaps?

[andy-hughes]

I am going to generalise here, but i think in the majority of cases, it's justified, and borne out by the interviews we see on TBV, and the behaviour we read about -

Young lads in school broadly divide into to two sections - the academic ones who sit in and study and go on to careers, and the sporty ones, who don;t like study, and play outside most of the time, in some cases discovering sports talents that see them as multi-millionaires in their early twenties.

So - a lot of young sports men - but by no means all - are not very bright, but they have to deal with the fame and fortune that comes with the rewards of their talent.

In cases like this, we have a young man in the company of other young men who like the maturity and intelligence to behave like the athletes and national representatives that they are, and revert to type, which is behaving like silly boys because rarely, if ever in their lives, has anyone ever told them not to.

It is to be expected - and t'was ever thus, football and rugby players are this way, and always will be.