If you excuse the drunken boorishness and excessive nudity, the conduct of rugby union players has always tended to compare well with that of their association footballing cousins.

That was, at least, until Martin Johnson took his band of pubescent brothers to New Zealand to both compete in the Rugby World Cup and – seemingly – the World Idiocy Championships.

There seems to be something in the Long White Cloud that scrambles the senses of northern hemisphere lads and makes them both as excitable as a toddler on Christmas Eve, while also bestowing a capacity for mental recall that would not look out of place in an old folks’ home.

Just as in 2009 when France’s Mathieu Bastareaud couldn’t remember whether his facial injuries were the result of being mugged, fighting with his team-mates or falling over drunk, Mike Tindall’s memory of ‘That Night’ in Queenstown appears a tad hazy too.

But those of the union church could always dismiss such incidents as booze-fuelled hijinks and comfort themselves with the knowledge that, in its more sober moments, their sport remains untainted by incidents such as the recent one involving Carlos Tevez.

For anyone who is as yet unacquainted with the plot, it is alleged the Manchester City striker refused to come off the bench during his side’s Champions League defeat to Bayern Munich.

Footballers, pah! It’d never happen in rugby.

Hang on to those horses for a second.

Birmingham & Solihull coach Russell Earnshaw tells me he experienced exactly the same thing during a Premiership game and two others have witnessed players question ‘What’s the point?’ when called forth to take part in the final seconds of a match.

These situations were relatively minor, if only because the media didn’t get hold of them but also given the fact even the top rugby players take a year to earn what Tevez pockets in a week,

But this isn’t a mathematical problem nor one that can be answered by reference to a pro-rata formula.

What the Tevez situation shows, if it actually happened as it is being reported, is the pernicious nature of professionalism in sport and the fact that money and hubris are a corrosive cocktail whatever shape the ball.

Rugby already has the hubris, all it needs now is the money.