If I could make one wish for 2018 it would be to turn back the tide of the petty, underhand cheating that is threatening to engulf the game.

Cheating has always gone on in rugby. Every breakdown is an illegal contest of slowing the ball down versus smashing the defenders off by any means necessary. In my career, I cheated every week. The difference was that I cheated to win massive battles in order to get the victory.

Now we are seeing cheating taking place over the smallest battles, which more often than not are to get your fellow professional into trouble.

We saw another example of that last week when Worcester beat London Irish. Donncha O’Callaghan yanks on the hair of Saia Fainga’a, the London Irish hooker. Fainga’a gives him an open-handed slap to which O’Callaghan responds like he has been dropped by a Mike Tyson uppercut. Being kind, you could say that he was just shocked but the benefit of the doubt is increasingly hard to apply.