- [Clara] So, Will,
have you had any experience playing rugby ever?
- [Will] I have not played it,
but I have seen middle schoolers play it.
And therefore,
I think I've seen it at its peak form.
(laughs)
- What's prevented you from ever playing it?
Is it the violence?
- Oh, so many things.
I think just kind of who I am as a person.
I always understood, there's a lot of important things
inside of your head.
Like the brain part is something you want to protect.
I never could really grasp how comfortable
they were to not wear helmets
and throw their heads into each other.
- That seems reasonable.
I think you made a lot of good points.
Rugby is super violent and dangerous and scary.
Right?
And so because of that,
they have a very reasonable rule
about what to do when a player is bleeding.
It is law
3.25.
"When a player has a blood injury,
that player leaves the field of play
and may temporarily be replaced.
The injured player returns
as soon as the bleeding has been controlled.
If the player is not available to return
to the field of play within 15 minutes,
the replacement becomes permanent.
- Okay.
That's reasonable.
I don't really even know what to picture
when I hear blood injury.
It's, it's a great term.
And I assume it is, take it at face value,
it is an injury that involves blood.
- Yes.
It sort of implies there's a severity to it, you know, like
can I get a paper cut and say, it's a blood injury.
I mean,
I'm going to, the next time that happens.
For sympathy and attention, of course.
So then I wanted to show you a video
of an example
of a blood injury.
This is Tom Williams,
who is coming off injured.
- [Will] So that is a blood injury.
- [Clara] Yeah.
(laughs)
- [Will] That feels like you could show me that,
say describe it,
and my brain would there say, blood injury.
There is almost some like joker-esque makeup, look to it.
Like in terms of it just being really red lips.
But,
sorry, I shouldn't make fun of this guy's blood injury.
- No, no,
actually you have sort of hit the nail on the head
because that is a fake injury.
Made with a Halloween
blood capsule.
You know, you bite and blood gushes.
- Okay, so.
So, dude played with a blood packet in his mouth for...
So many questions.
- [Clara] Let me set the scene
in the 2009 quarter finals of the Heineken cup,
it is the English team Harlequins
versus the Irish team Leinster.
Harlequins were losing by one point, with eight minutes left
and their star guy, Nick Evans was on the sideline
and they wanted to sub him in.
The only way to get him back in the game
was with a blood injury exception,
where he could fill in for someone who's bleeding.
- Okay.
- [Clara] So what they did, was they told the reserve
who was in at the time, Tom Williams,
who we saw,
they gave him a blood capsule and told him to bite it.
You know, being a good team player,
he went for it.
- I'm going to go out,
on a limb and say Tom Williams is an idiot.
- That's so mean.
- Here's a capsule.
Put it in your mouth for the team.
They're essentially telling him,
we care about you so little
that you are our excuse to get somebody better on.
- Well,
there is some support
that there might be some idiocy going on,
because he stores the capsule in his sock.
Nowhere else to put it really,
even though it's going in his mouth later, yeah.
- Isn't it just as likely to burst in your sock?
And the.
- Oh yeah.
- Then maybe,
hey, blood injury on the foot.
Maybe that also works for the plan.
Okay, I take it back.
- Maybe it would look less fake,
because there would be like less fluorescent rivers
of blood coming out of your mouth.
When time comes to take it out of his sock,
he drops it and picks it up off the ground
and puts it in his mouth.
(crosstalk)
- This was part of your defense for Tom Williams,
not being an idiot?
- No.
This was me conceding a point.
- Oh, okay, okay.
(laughs)
And then I,
unfortunately I have one more point in favor of him
being an idiot.
- Okay.
As he's coming off the field spitting blood
and all that, he, he winks at the bench.
- [Will] Well, now I will come to his defense.
Maybe that was just him being flirty.
- That's true.
We don't know who was on the bench.
- Weird thing to do,
do you think he was concerned and that like
somebody on the bench forgot
that the plan was for him to do a blood capsule?
And so he was like,
I don't want Greg to worry.
- Yeah.
- Remember.
- I think it was.
- This was part of the plan.
- Yeah.
Everything's all right.
Don't worry.
Don't call my mom.
Everything's fine.
- Oh, poor Tom.
- Right?
There we go.
Finally, we're on the same page.
- Poor, stupid Tom.
- Okay.
- If it had gone very, very smoothly,
that would be one thing.
But this feels like some bumbling idiots trying
to do a thing that they've thought through barely,
if at all.
- Well,
it's funny that you say that,
because,
does it like eventually led to an investigation
and they have done it four times before.
(laughs)
- So this, so this is the fourth or fifth time?
- This is the fifth time.
- This is the fifth time
that somebody from the Harlequins,
the mighty mighty proud Harlequins
has
left the game,
spitting an aggressive amount of blood.
- I mean,
maybe some of them thought to swallow it
as opposed to spit it,
because as it gushed into their mouth, they're like,
this is too much.
- But,
don't you think that feedback
would have been given to the medical staff?
- Oh, that's true.
- Or the prop department,
that is putting these blood capsules together for them
and able to take some of the blood out.
- Before we get too ahead of ourselves,
there's more to the
Tom Williams story.
- Okay.
- [Clara] So, you know,
as he's coming off the field
with this waterfall blood coming out of his mouth.
The other team is like
"That's fake.
Let us see."
And of course the Harlequins are like
"No, no, no.
We got it, blood injury, blood injury.
We got to get him to the locker room."
They rushed him to the locker room.
He's in there with his team doctor.
The other team,
Leinster's doctor
is literally banging on the locker room door,
trying to get in, to see this injury.
Because he's so sure it's fake.
So Williams and the doctor are panicking,
and decide the best thing to do is to use a
stitches remover to actually cut his lip.
- No.
- And they do.
- I like to imagine a world
where the opposing team's doctors saw the amount
of blood coming out of a guy's mouth and was panicked.
How can I be of support for this terrible dying boy
who clearly has tuberculosis?
(laughs)
- You can use our gauze,
it seems necessary.
Even with the real cut.
There was enough fishy stuff,
that there was an investigation.
And the team basically threw Tom Williams under the bus
and tried to make it like it was all his idea.
- That's amazing.
How do you, how are you such dicks?
- And like, he's already sacrificed so much for you.
Just the like emotional toll of being told,
like,
we want you out so badly
that we're gonna cheat.
(laughs)
He got banned for a year.
At which point he was like
"Oh, I'm going to,
I'm going to tell the truth.
I'm going to tell everyone."
The, like, director,
who's kind of like a GM in rugby,
he gets, you know,
banned for three years and resigned in disgrace
and all that.
The doctor that sliced him,
also disgraced.
But I think she's basically suspended for like a year
and then can practice medicine again.
- I don't know how I feel about anyone involved in this.
Everyone, like everyone should have to go back to school.
- [Clara] Thanks for watching, everybody.
And welcome back,
those who fainted at the sight of blood.
I imagine you're coming to right about now.
For more rule book exploitation,
check out these episodes of weird rules.
And don't forget to subscribe.
For secret base,
I'm Clara Morris.
Good night and good game.