There is no greater sight in rugby than a wing in full flight: Shane Williams leaving defenders spinning, or Jonah Lomu flattening all before him. But for destructive power neither can touch the uncapped Harlequin Tom Williams.
The publication of his submission, called "The New Evidence", before the European Rugby Cup appeal committee has become one of the page-turners of the summer. It is a short story – just the 26 pages and 76 paragraphs – but it is pure courtroom drama.
These written words from Williams stand in stark contrast to what he delivered orally from the dock at his original trial – sorry, disciplinary hearing – for his part in the fake blood scandal. What he said there, limply by his own admission, cost him a 12-month ban.
So lame was his performance before the beak that his then coach, Dean Richards, expressed his displeasure about the "delivery of my evidence and the clothes I had been wearing at the hearing. He told me that I would be better coached for the appeal," according Williams in his New Evidence.
Not only his word was rubbish, but his wardrobe, too. For a wing this may have been the tipping point.
Richards apparently then left a voicemail message, suggesting the name of somebody who could train Williams to give evidence. It's not recorded if he left the name of a tailor, but that too would presumably have been ignored, for Williams was going down a more independent path. He really would be better coached for the appeal because this time he was going to tell the truth.
Well, sort of. First there came a whole series of meetings between members of the board at Harlequins, including the chief executive, Mark Evans, and the chairman, Charles Jillings, and Williams, now backed by his union, the Professional Rugby Players' Association. The aim was to balance the level of disclosure at the appeal with a package of personal remuneration for the wing.
If he blew his whistle softly he would be rewarded and the chairman himself would take the tiller of Williams's career beyond rugby. If he blew hard enough to remove the lid on the whole affair, well, he would be responsible for the loss of sponsors, a place in Europe and a slide into that dark place known as "worse than relegation".
Williams was so spooked by the prospect of an eternity in limbo that he talked it over with his girlfriend and said that if the club paid off his mortgage he would go easy on the plea. The club declined and his truth gene was reactivated.
And then, just when Williams thought it might be just little old him and his girlfriend and the PRA against his own club, Richards fell on his sword, if that's not a little too bloody in this tale of joke-shop gore.
Goodness knows how tight the grip of the mighty former No8 had been around the neck of the entire club but suddenly, with his departure, candour was the mood of the moment.
Having accepted their coach's resignation, Harlequins resigned themselves to full and frank exposure. Williams duly stripped them bare. From once having a view on what a defendant should wear in court, Harlequins now stand starkers and shivering on the edge of the new season.
It could be that the rest of the playing squad view it all as trivial. The ruse of faking a blood-bin injury seems to have been commonplace and it is Harlequins' misfortune to be the first to be rumbled. The attempt at a cover-up is not the players' business.
On the other hand, it could be that the affair rips the soul out of the only Premiership club to play anywhere near London. In the old days they were often mocked for being too nice, ambassadors of a game that disappeared with Wavell Wakefield and the Sopwith Camel.
Here they are now, ridiculed for being a little bit too slippery for their own good. The cheating Quins. What a cascade was released with a chomp on a little capsule.
Spilling blood for the cause the Australian way
For real blood, Ricky Ponting showed the way. Fielding at silly point he took the drive on the lip, wiped away a smear and spat out a mouthful of claret. It was done with such disdain for pain that it looked almost theatrical. In the light of the chaos at Quins and admiration for a captain in defeat, this could be the season of concealed agony. It takes an Aussie to show Britain the retro way home.
For real blood, there's always West Ham-Millwall. One of the strangest reactions to fake blood at Harlequins was the outburst of charges of hypocrisy levelled at union from supporters of football and rugby league.
Well, from stabbings in the East End to fake visas at the Celtic Crusaders it seems there are plenty of problems doing the rounds in contact sport – disputes that aren't helped by a slanging match for the moral low ground.
The race card that counts
It didn't take long for the race card to be played on Caster Semenya's return to South Africa. She is the easy victim, according to sections of the African National Congress, of the Europeans, those old overlords who never did much to expose gender‑bending among their own in the 1970s and 80s.
There's a certain truth to it all. Aren't there 13 female world records in track and field still standing from the 80s? What powerful white women we had back then, never mind Flo-Jo.
But if there is a race card to be played, isn't it simply that Semenya began to speed up at a questionable rate in the past year? She registered improvements that would raise an eyebrow regardless of her colour. It should all be about time: hers over 800 metres, which were a little too good, and the timing of the IAAF's inquiry into her gender, which couldn't have been worse.
The boy can't help it
Jonny-watch. After two rounds in the French Top 14 regular season, Jonny Wilkinson is 31 personal points to the good and his new team, Toulon, are unbeaten after a draw against Stade Français and a win over Racing-Metro, both at home at the Stade Mayol. The slightly negative note is that he went off after 61 minutes in the second game, with a strain to his adductor muscles. Nothing serious, they say, no doubt with fingers crossed ...
Another echo of times past and best forgotten is the line from Aubin Hueber, the assistant coach at Toulon. "He's working hard. Perhaps a little too hard." Slow down, Jonny.
All buttoned up with worry
And speed up, Jenson. The leader of the Formula One standings is said to be in the grip of title tightness. Jenson Button, without a win since the Turkish grand prix in early June and seventh in Valencia at the European grand prix, is apparently thinking about engines and tyres and suspension and anything bar driving his Brawn as quickly as possible. They say Lewis Hamilton went through the same slight seizure.
In recognition of this tightness, Button is looking for ways to relax. He claims a triathlon did the trick. A triathlon? Has he met Jonny?
