Time for Ryan Lamb to leave Gloucester?
Ryan Lamb
By Cherry Picker
March 11 2009
It’s looking more and more as if Ryan Lamb is on the way out of Gloucester, with many people – perhaps even including the player himself – believing that a change of scenery will get his rugby career back on track. Lamb was fined £1,000 earlier this week after he admitted punching a man outside a Cheltenham night club.
It was the second incident Lamb has been involved in recently – he was cautioned last year for threatening language after an incident in Gloucester in late 2007.
In communities like Gloucester and the surrounding towns and cities, rugby players are major personalities and in the current celebrity culture, they can become the centre of attention when they go out socially. That can lead to all sorts of problems.
The obvious answer is not to go out to clubs and bars where drink is flowing, but that is easier said than done for young lads who want to enjoy a social life.
Coach dean Ryan is struggling to know what to do about it. He told the Citizen: "I think people are responsible for their own actions. Clubs are responsible for taking actions when something has happened.
"But you cannot remove the responsibility of the individual to act in a civil way. I don't see this as any different.
"I think too much is made of a club's responsibility. Without locking people up I'm not sure how you do that (control people)
"I think it's important that every individual here understands the standards that Gloucester operate under. If they breach those standards they face internal discipline to be under.
"They have a civil responsibility to act in the community as we would expect."
Ryan is, of course, dead right and Lamb now faces an internal disciplinary hearing. It shouldn’t take long – he admitted thumping somebody, though of course the details of the incident are not public knowledge.
Lamb has not been a regular all season and current thinking at Kingsholm suggests he isn’t going to be in the near future.
Perhaps it’s time to move on to a club where he won’t be a local lad who has made good and will be able to concenrate on getting his game, and his social life, in order.
MEANWHILE, Akapusi Qera is fit after his knee injury and will be competing for a place at home to champions Wasps this weekend.
Additional good news for Glaws is that Olly Barkley has joined Olly Morgan and Luke Narraway in being released by England, so they are all available.
Ryan rightly says: "At the moment it's about having the fittest or freshest group out there. As the competition hots up post-Six Nations we'll see."
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Seriously to fair to Lamb, I don’t think for one minute the chat should that, more likely to be an opposing supporter slagging him off