The Nick Townsend Column: Take it on the chin: it's the price you pay for making a living out of sport

There is no other way of articulating this. Sunday's events at Stade Ernest Wallon shamed rugby union. It was not just the spectacle of 6ft 5in of latent fury erupting like Vesuvius; nor the photograph of spectators, includ-ing women, recoiling from the apparently flailing fists of the Toulouse lock Trevor Brennan. It is the craven response from a rugby club normally associated with the highest standards which most offends.

Toulouse insulted us with a statement referring to Brennan (who subsequently received a yellow card for punching and scuffling with the Ulster captain, Justin Harrison, 10 minutes after coming on as a replacement in the Heineken Cup tie) as reacting "in an unacceptable but understandably human way". And the tournament's organisers, ERC, waited until Thursday evening before announcing that they are charging Brennan and his team-mate Gareth Thomas, who made offensive gestures to spectators and apparently tried to join Brennan's sortie into the crowd, with misconduct. The pair will appear before an independent disciplinary committee on Thursday.

Association football's dispen-sation of justice has long had its critics, but it is inconceivable that any League club would not have responded with rather more alacrity and sense of their own responsibility. There can be no greater condemnation than that.

Brennan's response to what he claims was crowd provocation has been compared with Eric Cantona's kung-fu style assault on a spectator at Selhurst Park. That infamous occasion was 12 years ago yesterday, and that case - Brennan's club and his apologists should perhaps be reminded - culminated in a prison sentence, albeit one reduced to community service (almost certainly because of Cantona's celebrity rather than his contrition).

I recall the Cantona affair well, because I was there in Croydon, after his appeal had been heard, to witness his cryptic statement about the nature of the British media, depicting us as "a flock of seagulls following the trawler". However, what I also remember equally as vividly was Manchester United's own responsible response to his actions.

United had been well aware that the FA's punishment would be draconian, of course, and had attempted to head them off at the disciplinary pass. Sir Alex Ferguson recalls in his auto-biography that when he and the board met the evening after that Crystal Palace game, "we were unanimous that our response had to be powerful enough to protect Manchester United's reputation". Their reaction was as much a pragmatic as a moral one. Nevertheless, they acted, suspending the Frenchman for four months, until the end of the season. In the event, the FA doubled that term amid a feeling among some observers at the time that Cantona, who claimed he had been the recipient of racial insults, should never play again.

Wind the clock forward 12 years, and the Dubliner Brennan says his mother was insulted by Ulster supporters. Ulster supporters insist it was his bar (he runs a popular hostelry in the town) they were denigrating. It could be said that possibly something was lost in communication between north and south of the Irish border, except there are a fair few consonants and vowels of difference between "your bar is bollocks" and "your mother is a whore".

Some may consider the matter laughable; not least because the victim was clad in a Santa hat. But it isn't because the 25-year-old accountant from Belfast ended up with a mangled chin. Brennan also intruded into a place which should always be a sanctuary for spectators, just as much as the field of play should always be the sole domain of the former Ireland international and his fellow players.

Which isn't to suggest that spectators who stand and gesture and hurl personal insults at sportsmen invite anything but contempt. Sheffield United's manager, Neil Warnock, once told me he accepted the verbal vitriol that dripped from the stands while it was aimed at him. But he objected profoundly if the crowd around the dug-out descended to hurling abuse about his family.

It is the ultimate act of cowardice. Those spectators do so in the knowledge that players, or coaches, cannot answer back.

Most spectators simply would not stoop to such subterranean depths. But for those who do, it's part of the deal, a curious logic which says that the admission fee confers on customers the right to denigrate professional sportsmen who are well-paid enough to consider such a fate as an occupational hazard. That can range from the wit directed by Aussie supporters at Phil Tufnell fielding near the boundary to the more objectionable chants directed at David Beckham and his wife Victoria.

The crude reality is that almost anything goes, except racial and homophobic slurs. Indeed, the Welsh Premier League side Porthmadog have been fined £13,200 and docked three points after one fan racially abused a referee's assistant, even though the club quickly identified and banned the offender. Though the punishment appears excessive, given the circumstances, one cannot accuse the Welsh FA of failure to react to the situation.

Brennan may possibly have had a genuine cause for grievance against certain Ulster supporters. But one of the few downsides of playing sport for a living is having to take abuse, some of it highly personal, on the chin. It does not confer on any player the right to dispense retribution in the same area. As Brennan's club should have immediately emphasised, rather than seeking to mitigate his actions.

Lucas, you are no fit successor to Bobby Moore

Lucas Neill may, indeed, help lead West Ham into the promised land - the continued existence in the Premiership that Eggert Magnusson thought he had been promised when he bought into the London club. Otherwise it is going to be a hell of a waste of what his new manager, Alan Curbishley, regards as a "world-class" defender.

Neill insists his decision is based on football, not on becoming the best-paid player at Upton Park. He utters the words "Bobby Moore" as though they are the passwords to unlocking the hearts of the faithful. Yet, even with his reported salary of £70,000 a week, the Australia defender is apparently taking no chances, having negotiated a £500,000 sell-out - or should that be get-out? - clause if the Hammers are still relegated despite Curbishley's scouring of football's shores as avidly as the looters on Branscombe beach.

In a season's time, who knows? Neill's choice may have been vindicated. The Hammers may have survived and thrived. They may be pursuing Liverpool in the Premiership, challenging for a European place. Or then again, they may be challenging for promotion from the Coca-Cola Championship, over-burdened with players on extravagant contracts.

Neill would do well to remember that he is experiencing that "volcanic heat" of approval from West Ham, in contrast with what he describes as the "cold feeling from Liverpool", only because they are absolutely desperate. Liverpool can afford to be selective, and secure an ambitious man; one who, ultimately, aspires to wear their shirt.

Neill has always maintained that he is a Liverpool supporter by instinct. Everything in the last week appears to confirm that he is actually a mercenary by instinct. That's fine. As long as he refrains from including himself in the same sentence as Moore, who spent 15 years, boy and man, enhancing a great club.