Inside The Dressing Room this week:
Why Jamie George’s description of a 21-year-old professional rugby player who doesn’t know right from wrong should concern us all.
The extraordinary double standard in professional sport, where players are expected to demonstrate exceptional discipline on the pitch but are sometimes excused for dangerous behaviour away from it.
The story of Jacob Dunne, whose single punch at 19 killed another man, and why his experience should be compulsory reading for anyone responsible for young athletes.
What genuine duty of care looks like when a player gets something seriously wrong, and why protecting somebody is very different from excusing them.
The uncomfortable question facing professional sport: are we developing responsible young adults, or simply exceptionally talented athletes?
In June, I wrote about a young Saracens rugby player whose name had become tangled up in a nightclub incident involving England cricketers Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson.
At the time, the investigations were ongoing, and much of the attention was focused on Stokes, Atkinson and the fallout for England cricket. I wrote about the wider consequences of the incident, particularly how easily young players can find themselves caught up in stories dominated by much bigger names.
What emerged afterwards was far more serious. Totoa Auvaa had reportedly thrown a punch aimed at Atkinson, missed him and struck a member of the England and Wales Cricket Board’s security staff, who required stitches. The security guard chose not to involve the police, and Saracens subsequently concluded an independent review without imposing formal disciplinary sanctions.
Four months later, I’m writing about the same young rugby player again, and this time my sympathy is considerably harder to find.
Auvaa, 21, a Samoan forward in Saracens' senior academy who made his competitive first-team debut against Northampton Saints last month, has been released by the club following another incident, this time in St Albans. Police are investigating an allegation that a man in his twenties was punched in the face during an altercation in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Saracens have confirmed that Auvaa has left with immediate effect, saying his conduct fell short of the standards expected of everyone representing the club, on and off the pitch.
There are still details we do not know about the latest incident, and those matter. I wasn’t there, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
What this sequence of events has done is bring me back to something said about Auvaa in June, which I find more troubling now than I did at the time.
His teammate, England international Jamie George, was asked about the young player after the nightclub altercation. George described him as a “good kid” who had made a mistake. He talked about how hard it must have been to leave Samoa and find himself in London, the importance of surrounding him with role models, and the club’s responsibility to support him. All reasonable sentiments, on the face of it.
Then he said this:
“He doesn’t know right from wrong at the minute.”
I have read that sentence several times and I still can’t get past it. If a professional rugby player genuinely doesn’t know right from wrong at 21, we have a much bigger problem than a young man having a bad night.
