Matt Stevens is a very naughty boy. The revelations this week about his drug taking have surfaced after he failed a drug test at the weekend.
He has come out on national TV and admitted he has a problem, and for this he should be given due respect. But let's not get overly tearful for him.
In his interview, he has clearly stated that he has had a problem for a while, and yet it took a positive dope test for this to come out. Exactly how long has he been doing this kind of thing? The standard tariff for a drugs offence from the RFU is a two-year ban, and, England player or not, he should serve all of this time.
He is a high-profile player and this incident has tainted the image of the sport. Like any other young man who has a problem with drugs – recreational or otherwise – he needs support, and it is good that the likes of Bath clubmate Justin Harrison will be there for him to provide moral and emotional support.
I suspect the club will itself provide a great deal of pastoral care and will ensure that the boy learns from this gross mistake. Nevertheless, what he did was wrong and he should pay the price.
Let's also not forget the other miscreant in the England elite. Not so very long ago, Mike Tindall was up before the beak on a drink driving charge, and has had his licence taken away for three years.
What I find disturbing is that, while there has been a good deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth over the Stevens affair, with a good many column-inches dedicated to it (to which, of course, I'm adding), the attention attracted by Tindall's misdemeanour was miniscule by comparison, yet it is, in my opinion, at least as bad a crime as that of the drug-taking England prop.
Some might point to the differential in that Tindall's drug was legally sanctioned by the state, whereas Stevens' was not. This makes not a scrap of difference.
The arguments that cause governments to make class A drugs illegal is not just about the injury to the user, but also to the thousands of people in the supply chain it affects, right back to the drugs barons who control the trade.
Drink driving is illegal, not just because of the damage the driver does to himself, but to every other road user, including his own passengers. I don't know whether Zara was in the car with Tindall that night, but imagine if she had been killed because of his actions? I think we'd have seen some column inches then.
Tindall was just plain lucky that while under the influence of alcohol he didn't kill or maim anybody in the turbo-charged offensive weapon he stepped into that day, and yet the worst comment I have seen from the rugby ‘community’ on the issue has been some message-board humour about getting a chauffeur from the Gatcombe staff to take him to training.
Both of these elite athletes broke the law. One is paying for it with his driving licence, and will have to take the bus a bit more often in future; in all probability, the other will be paying for his crime with his career.
One has recently returned to rugby playing form, and is perhaps an outside chance of a place in the British & Irish Lions team to tour South Africa this year; the other will now never have that chance.
On balance, I'm sorry to say, Matt Stevens looks unduly harshly done to.