LEWIS MOODY cannot be blamed for steering clear of the story which has rocked professional rugby union.

You would not expect him to lay into fellow professionals while in the island on a jolly.

But while the affable Leicester Tiger can hide on the issue, his sport most certainly can’t.

The ‘Bloodgate’ issue has repercussions for all rugby.

Just one crafty wink of the eye captured on TV camera, one phoney blood capsule, one cheating coach and one failed cover-up, has brought rugby down to the same level as football, the game rugby men worldwide have for years chided as a game for fancy-dans and overpaid cheats.

But, now we know, rugby cheats too and, to hear the disgraced Dean Richards explain himself into more of a mess this week, they have been doing it for quite some time – and, why not, if it helps you win the game, claim the prize, the glory.

Just 15 years of professionalism has brought the game crashing from its self-erected pedestal.

Bloodgate, of course, is just a high-profile example of one team attempting to win at all costs, but it happens on a daily basis as sportsmen and women worldwide at all levels.

It happens here but, I’d like to think, less so.

And teams and individuals do it because it is virtually an accepted practice to strive to get an advantage on your opponent, an unfair one or not.

But, always, always, always, the victory is most sweet when it comes at the end of hours, days, months and years of honest toil.

North’s cruel failure to land the Priaulx title it so deserved under Geoff Tardif made the chocolate-and-blues’ 2006-07 league triumph so much sweeter. Bels’ title triumph of 2005-06, their first in 46 years, felt so special not so much because it ended a long drought, but that it was so deserved by focused players and hard-working and dedicated club officials alike.

That’s why I hope that the team which tops Division One come next April will not necessarily have the best team or squad, but is the most deserving through its commitment to a marathon cause and plays in the spirit so sadly lacking at Harlequins RFC of late.

HONEST toil has already taken Tom Druce a fair way in athletics.

Injury permitting, it will place him on one of the biggest international sporting stages in 2010, the athletics track at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, four years after he felt a tad cheated of a place in the Guernsey team for Melbourne.

This week, the double Island Games individual champion has again highlighted his elevation in class and place on the all-time list of Guernsey track and field greats, with a 1-51.78 over two laps in Eltham, London.

By Delhi next October, I’m confident he will – barring injuries – have stepped up another level. He has the talent and dedication and now needs the luck of staying clear of the curse of all athletes, injury, which fellow track star Dale Garland risks every time he steps onto the football field for Rangers. You have to admire him for following a passion, but you can’t stop me wincing every time he goes near an opponent.

Not even the inventful Harlequins medical staff could fix Dale’s broken leg in time for Delhi.