OPINION: One wonders what the highly-paid big-wigs at New Zealand Rugby have been doing this summer.
You'd think they would have been working hard to try to exorcise a horror off-field in 2016.
Possibly, but they've also been shooting themselves in the foot once again - by blatantly lying to the New Zealand public over All Black Patrick Tuipulotu's absence from the final test of 2016 against France.
Although Tuipulotu is not a starting lock in a full-strength All Blacks side, he had cemented his place in the test squad.
All Blacks management said last year they love the impact Tuipulotu brings from the bench.
We were told that the 23-year-old lock missed the Paris test because of "personal reasons".
Sorry - what? Personal reasons means a family bereavement, or your partner is having a baby (even the pending arrival of a child hasn't been enough reason for some All Blacks to return home in the past).
It now turns out Tuipulotu was put on a plane because he had tested positive for a banned substance. This does not count as a 'personal reason' - and it was completely misleading to tell the rugby public such a whopper.
When a professional rugby player tests positive for drugs that is an entirely 'professional reason' for being yanked home.
Tuipulotu has since missed all of the Blues franchise's pre-season training sessions as his personal issues have been "ongoing", and he won't feature for them any time soon as he has now been provisionally suspended.
So who knew what and when, and why weren't we told the truth?
While Tuipulotu has been reported as being shocked by the positive test, Kiwi rugby fans were also taken aback, but maybe NZ Rugby weren't that surprised.
It has emerged NZ Rugby were told about Tuipulotu's positive test in November 2016.
Tuipulotu played two tests for the All Blacks that month, against Italy on November 12, and in the shock loss to Ireland in Chicago a week earlier on November 5.
The selectors didn't play Tuipulotu in the rematch with Ireland in Dublin on November 20, or the final test of year against France on November 27.
Did the All Blacks selectors not choose him because they knew a positive test was imminent?
What is most galling about the situation is that NZ Rugby told the public that Tuipulotu had been sent home because of personal reasons.
If NZ Rugby weren't legally allowed to publicly discuss the positive test at all due to the ongoing investigation, why didn't they simply say that they couldn't talk about it all?
The answer is: because it would've piqued everyone's curiosity. And rightly so. So they chose to lie instead.
NZ Rugby should have said in November: "Patrick Tuipulotu has had to leave the tour over a matter which we are not legally able to discuss."
By describing his absence as a personal matter, NZ Rugby have possibly tarnished Tuipulotu unfairly, especially if it emerges he had ingested the banned substance accidentally.
And if NZ Rugby weren't legally able to discuss Tuipulotu's positive test in November, why have they now done so some three months later?
2016 was NZ Rugby's annus horribilis and they seem terribly out of touch with public expectations. Lying to your supporters won't get you back in the fans' good books.
If NZ Rugby boss Steve Tew isn't familiar with the story of the 'boy who cried wolf', someone should perhaps inform him of it at the next high-powered board meeting.