It was like a time warp for me this week watching Brock James and Brad Weber bumble their way through what passed for a press conference, answering, or not answering, questions about the Ranfurly Shield.

The whole way the rugby union has handled it reminds me of some sort of scandal from the 80's or 90's. A bit of hush hush, let's not say too much, let's keep it to ourselves, if we have to we will roll someone out to offer a few half-hearted nondescript one-liners.

In a sign of what's changed in rugby in my lifetime, thank the Good Lord for Sir John Kirwan who, from France, lambasted them and their behaviour.

He reminded us what a disgrace it was, what a moral failure it was, what a bad look for the game he loves it was and what a massive disservice these clowns in Hawkes Bay were doing to people like him who actually take the game seriously.

The advent of a former player-turned-commentator has been good for the sport because the odd one is actually articulate and tells it like it is, from an insiders point of view. Kirwan is from an era, and Jeff Wilson was with him and agreeing, when professionalism came of age, when they got rid of the meat pack and the beer crates and actually got paid for being athletes.

With that, came responsibility.

And as Kirwan pointed out, they have all made mistakes. But like life away from rugby, when you do make a mistake you own it, and in owning it we all move on.

This Hawkes Bay business is the stuff of another age. In a world where an increasing number of these elite players don’t even drink, what an astonishing sight to see a shattered shield, God knows what sort of substance on top of it, a drink driving charge and a whole bunch of Neanderthals claiming they know nothing or weren't there.

Enter head office, with yet another display of head-in-the-sand arrogance and their so-called investigation. It meant you end the week with a sport reminding us, yet again, that some move with the times and others don’t.

Rugby's many and varied problems, from the finances to the participation of kids, is well documented. And part of that story has always been a mind set where open, honest transparency has never been a forte, clear, clean, modern communication is not the favoured route and looking like you really care and want to be as good a custodian of the sport as you can never came naturally.

The Ranfurly Shield is the last vestige of genuine broad-based interest in the game at that level and look what they did to it.

It’s a shabby, low rent, uncouth set of circumstances and an even worse response to them.