David Flatman: Yes they were naughty boys but it's healthy we have an unspoken code

From the Front Row: I do not want to have my eyes gouged or genitals detached during a game

(getty images)

The behaviour of one or two of English rugby's leading stars of late might just have given the cynics something to bite on. Mark Cueto's ban for foul play and Ben Foden's warning for allegedly kicking a taxi have both been well covered in the press.

Naturally, general opinion will be polarised on issues like these; there will be those who read the conclusions and feel their blood boil inside them and those who think, well, lads will be lads. As in any argument, the one who can work to find balance will probably end up the least frustrated of all.

While not quite an omerta, I do believe there is an unspoken code among players in rugby union. This is not a vow of silence, but more a proverbial line in the sand. And actually I think this is a healthy thing. Like the senior players getting the best spaces in the club car park, there has evolved a real set of rules with regards to the behaviour of players the world over that, while not official, tends, for the most part, to keep the blokes in line.

On the subject of foul play, my views will no doubt anger some and please others, and this is fine, but I speak as a player with a pretty good disciplinary record who plays in a confrontational position. I do not want to have my eyes gouged or genitals detached during a game. Nor do I want to be hit from behind or from an unsighted position. These are cheap shots, and they are largely the work of cowards.

I once received a good filling-in on the floor from a scrum-half you would know well. A scrum-half, you say? Yes, I was on my back at the time and both of my arms were trapped under my body. What a good lad. Ultimately, actions such as this cost you the respect of your peers, never mind the odd citing, and this tends to make them a rarity in the modern game. I honestly believe that if all the rough stuff is banished, rugby union will lose some of its traditional appeal. The all-in mass brawl is dead in this country and that's good news, but the odd bit of enthusiastic enforcement is the reason many play the game.

I was exposed to the phenomenon that is gouging at quite an early age. Just 18, I was playing away against a big French club in the Heineken Cup. I decided to make an attempt to disrupt their driving maul and pretty quickly regretted it. A horrid experience, this two-second snapshot set in stone my opinion of gouging. Mark Cueto, though, didn't gouge. Had he done so, he would have been banned for a very long time. He is certainly an aggressive man on the field, but he's no cheap shot. What he did was unwise and, judging by his guilty plea (for accidental contact with the eye area, not gouging), he accepted that. As I have written before, making contact with the eye area is not the same as gouging. Watch any player's hands for 80 minutes and you will, probably without exception, see them touch somebody's face and eyes; very different to trying to pull an eyeball out.

Ben Foden, it seems, had a few beers too many and kicked a taxi. For this, he was swiftly brought into line by the RFU disciplinary officer Judge Jeff Blackett. As invariably appears to be the case, the punishment matched the offence here, too. He wasn't sentenced to life, nor did the governor give him a nudge and a wink. What he did was naughty, and if he does it again he will no doubt get a hammering, but I bet he doesn't.

Of course there will be sports fans who think his ingestion of any alcohol at all is unacceptable but, again, I disagree. After a good win last week I popped into town and enjoyed a few pints with some team-mates and this, for me, is precious time. The key is to stop before you lose control, and most people wake up at some point wishing they had called it a night a drink or two earlier, so to be too upset at Foden is to be too upset at alcohol as an entity, and that is an argument too vast for this article.

To expect those in the public eye to behave responsibly is perfectly reasonable, but to insist they abstain from fun and must, in an instant, become immune to human error is not. All it needs is self-control and if, now and then, this needs to be regulated by someone tasked with the job then, just like the game itself, the enforcers step forward.