An open letter to Trevor Brennan

To be honest with you, I didn't know much about you before the event. Of course, I had read some articles in the press, especially one in a French rugby magazine and paused on your profile because a) you were Irish and b) you were playing for Stade Toulousain, who to me are the Crusaders of France, if not the Northern Hemisphere.

This article stated that you owned a pub  -- so apt for an Irish rugby guy, but so unhealthy for a professional sportsman. That's what made me stay much longer on your profile. Anyway, the next I heard about you was in January. I didn't even watch the match, to be honest (January is the exam period here) but I read all the articles -- you apologising, people commenting on it, the guy complaining, the club doing its job, the federation not really. Then I thought : ''He is just a human being, like everyone else.'

When you are a rugby player, playing is your job, from the first second to the 80th minute. But before and after the referee blows, you are just a man. And what is more important to a man -- his family. A player's family will always be there: it was there before rugby, it makes the same sacrifices during your career and it will be here after rugby!

So Trevor, what you did was just showing you were not made of muscles only but also made of flesh -- made with a heart. For this reason, I will never blame you for your act. A suspension for life was just not the right thing for the European Rugby Cup disciplinary panel to impose. They made a huge mistake in suspending you for life for a fist in the head of a 'supporter'  -- at least, someone attending a match, because if he were a supporter, he wouldn't have behaved like that.

During international matches, John Smit, Victor Matfield and some of their Springbok teammates are little short of terrorists (the word may be too strong but I can't think of a better one to represent my feelings). Yet they scarcely get yellow cards. But ask Dan Carter, Aurelie Rougerie and Jerome Thion if they shouldn't be suspended.

You lose your mind just one time and BANG! And Trevor, guess what? You aren't Zinedine Zidane -- his action during the 2006 World Cup Final in Germany could have killed that Materrazzi guy, and what did the French captain get? Suspended for just five matches, which never penalised him since he had announced his retirement after this particular match.

Trevor, I don't know whether you have followed Zidane's example, and that's why you said you retired before the ERC disciplinary people suspended you for life. But I do hope you will get half of a third of a quarter of the support in your country that Zizou got here in France. People forgave him because he defended the honour of his family.

Now that you have time, take care of yourself and your family and please keep the keys of your pub. Maybe you'll get a visit some day from the girl who supports a player made of a flesh, made of a heart.