JUST when I am starting to get some pleasure from rugby union the game comes up with a farce to rival anything the late Brian Rix could produce at Whitehall.

Talk about a carry on!

For those of you who missed it, the France – Wales game in Paris overran for more than twenty minutes - a quarter of a normal game - that amounted to nothing more than an endless string of scrums, collapses, penalties, a sin-binning and a dodgy substitution. And a heck of a lot of just standing around doing nothing. (Nearly 14 minutes according to one report).

It finally ended with France scoring a match-winning try in the 100th minute.

Of course, it need not have been like that and Wayne Barnes had the answer in his own hands. So I blame the ref. And here’s the reason … when my grandson fancied having a go at rugby, his dad took him along every Saturday morning and stood on the touchline to watch the games.

Like most sports, junior rugby suffers from a shortage of officials and on some mornings one poor soul had to take charge of all age group matches. Eventually he got round to asking my son if he would like to referee a game.

“Sorry, but I don’t know the rules,” he said. The lone ref’s reply: “Don’t worry about that – nobody knows the rules. Just blow our whistle every now and again and point directly at somebody. Nobody will know why so they won’t argue. Job done.”

Any suggestion that such an act would be against the spirit of the game would have been lost in Paris – what happened there was completely against any form of sportsmanship and resulted in the wrong team winning anyway. The secrets of the scrum will forever remain a mystery…

MAYBE it’s the cynic in me but get this - Muirfield Golf Club members vote to refuse to allow ladies to join and its name is removed the Open rota.

Naturally, The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers cannot possibly stand for such a snub so they reluctantly hold another vote. This time they decide to reverse the original vote and ladies are now allowed to join. And then, faster that you can say Nick Faldo the club’s name is back on the Open rota.

If we naively accept that this decision was not made so that the name Muirfield could be restored to the highly prestigious and lucrative Open circuit one question remains.

As there are currently no female members, how can there be a two-to-five-year waiting list before the first lady is allowed to join?

As it has taken them 273 years to reach this stage another few years won’t matter too much. But, what are the odds that Muirfield will be invited to stage another Open before it gets round to accepting its first lady member?

WILL he stay or will he go? Arsene Wenger says he has already made up his mind but he will let the world know of his decision in his own time?

So for now fans send messages by plane over the West Brom ground and even they can’t agree. WENGER OUT, NO NEW CONTRACT was quickly followed over The Hawthorns by IN ARSENE WE TRUST: RESPECT

It seems like the perfect answer to those phone-in moaners who say Arsenal should ask the fans what they want

Meanwhile one man who does know what he wants is Jose Mourinho. He would rather win the Europa League than finish a distant fourth in the Premier League. His reason – It’s another trophy, a place in the Champions League and a chance to contest the Super Cup.

Mourinho may not be everybody’s idea of a favourite uncle but there are times when he knows exactly what the fans want. And anyway a fourth-place finish with Manchester United can never look good on a CV alongside a lengthy list of trophy wins.