When Wales were put in the dock ahead of last week’s meeting with England they were lucky to have Warren Gatland in charge of them.

Having brought extra players in to train with them as they struggled to cope with mounting injury problems a humourless smile played on his lips when he was asked about the charge that could surely only have been levelled by the twee-est of blazeratti that his management had been accused of breaching not the rules themselves but the spirit of them.

“Whatever that means…” he responded.

A less worldly head coach might have allowed been distracted, but by the end of the weekend the capacity of the two time Grand Slam and Lions series winning coach to identify priorities and make clear-headed decisions had proven crucial if not decisive.

He knows what matters in a fiercely competitive situation and that, any more than telling Sam Warburton and Justin Tipuric to stay onside at all times, sticking rigidly to some unquantifiable spirit of what a well-meaning law-maker intended is not going to win you many games.

I have been consistent on this for many years, not least including the notorious Neil Back incident when, surrounded by livid Irish friends and colleagues in the Millennium Stadium press box and privately sharing their desire to see Munster beat Leicester in the Heineken Cup final, I defended his action in knocking the ball from Peter Stringer’s hand at a ruck.

Compared with what had been happening at the breakdowns all day Back’s offence was blatant and almost more honest because he should have been caught.

It is sport. Set the rules. Appoint adjudicators to ensure that people stick to them or otherwise and get on with it.

In that regard rugby in particular has benefited hugely from the way in which television is now used to re-visit instances of foul play, allowing sneaky instances of disgusting behaviour like gouging, biting and stamping to be treated as they should be.

However we do sport and society a grave disservice when using similar terminology about the dropping of standards to assess matters that essential come down to personal morality.

For my money the problems that truly threaten the fabric of sport are those that genuinely undermine its capacity to help us improve the health of society.

On that basis violent and dangerous play must be minimised while anything that can be done to get rid of dope dealers and match-fixers, including jail sentences let alone sporting sanctions, should be pursued.

Comparing breaches of ‘the spirit’ of the competitive rules of sport to that sort of abuse represents a disturbing loss of perspective.

Sporting rules offer parameters within which people operate no more, no less.

Some will choose not to play on a Sunday, just as some will choose to stick to some arcane notions of ‘gentlemanly behaviour’ which is up to them, but particularly at professional level, with officials on hand to make decisions and TV cameras there to offer replays of incidents, let’s just apply the rules as best we can.

It does not take some huge ethical leap to accept that essentially social, amateur sport, where we must award our own free kicks when playing fives, or give our teammates out whether we properly know the LBW laws or not, is different.

On which note, as someone who bats and bowls equally badly, I found it refreshing when, challenged by an English interviewer a few years ago, Mike Hussey, the Australian batsman known as “Mr Cricket”, said something to the effect of: “I don’t walk mate.”

For me those who simply accept umpires decisions are those doing the right thing in cricket and I have come across more than a few instances of those who have built a reputation for ‘walking’ using that to their advantage at key moments.

The supercilious tripe spouted by bowlers about this is worst of all. I’ve been out many more times to appalling, pressure-induced LBW shouts than I’ve been given not out when nicking one to the wicket-keeper.

The reaction of peers can, though, be a key element and in that regard I was disappointed by the overblown schoolmarmish reaction of Laura Davies to Suzanne Pettersen’s decision to play hard ball, Seve-style, which arguably elevated the Solheim Cup to a different level in terms of its importance to those taking part.

When Pettersen refused to let Alison Lee get away with her presumption that a two foot put would be given I could not help but mentally compare her behaviour with that of a rather pompous old gent I know who is renowned for frequently giving himself five putts in the knowledge that those he is playing with are too polite to call him.

As with Wales’ spiritual blasphemy, however, the nature of such matters is in the eye of the beholder and, just for the record, it actually is unfair that partly because of proximity, but also because of superior resources to rivals, Wales could bring in additional players to their training sessions last week.

However those who failed to anticipate that should simply have realised their mistake and resolved to ensure that the rules were clear on the matter in future.

As for invoking spirits, may I suggest we leave that to dodgy clairvoyants and the dafties who believe in that sort of thing, albeit I suspect there’s a fair bit of cross-over between those and the stuffy cornflake-splutterers who worry about the secret codes that make their sport special while endorsing, implicitly or explicitly, all sorts of obnoxious prejudice.