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"This report will draw a line in the sand and allow us to move forward," RFU president and task group chairman John Owen told me.

Owen said the task force was confronted with a lot of "speculation, rumour and hearsay" during the investigation, but very few concrete examples of cheating.

The RFU is hoping to finally draw a line under Bloodgate with the Task Force report

For example, Dean Richards, the self-confessed architect of 'Bloodgate', told Owen that one of his Quins players had alleged the faking of a blood injury when he played for England.

"But we spoke to that player and he denied it," Owen said.

RFU chief executive Francis Barron boasted about how "robust and comprehensive" the bulky report is.

"This is the first time any rugby body has attempted to get to the bottom of these allegations," he said.

"If you read the report, you would have to agree that the conclusion we have come to is spot on - that there is no widespread cheating at any level of the game."

So is the RFU right to be so confident? Has this document restored the image and reputation of English rugby?

Well, as ever, it probably depends how you interpret the statistics.

The basis of the report was an anonymous, confidential online questionnaire given to professional players, coaches and medical staff and their amateur counterparts.

I was surprised that only 23% of professional players had bothered to return the questionnaire, which would have taken no longer than 10 minutes to complete.

They had even been sent three reminders to do so by their union, .

After all, the reputation of their sport and their profession was at stake.

Task force member David Barnes, chairman of the PRA, denied that the report had been undermined and insisted his members had nothing to hide.

"They (the players) had a very short time to put this together and players want to concentrate on winning," he said

"I am happier with 23% coming forward, rather than making people write responses that could be false."

Owen agreed, saying: "We weren't disappointed with the response from the professional game, we were really quite pleased.

"It isn't the quantity but the quality of the responses that counts. And 80% of the responses (102 of 129) were from players who had played representative rugby."

In contrast, there were 4,524 responses from the grassroots game, yet this was never really the area where we were worried about the faking of blood injuries.

Furthermore, the conclusions you can draw from the questionnaire results depend on interpretation.

For example, 10% of players admitted to having seen or participated in the faking of blood injuries in Premiership and European matches.

Of those, 4% said it had happened rarely and 8% very rarely, but still the figure seems high.

And a whopping 41% said they had seen or participated in the feigning of injuries leading to .

Only 5% said this had happened very often and 15% often, but again, this seems shockingly high.

The task force believes will negate this problem.

They have also recommended a trial for the use of , to tackle the feigning of injuries in general.

This was probably the most interesting of the 16 recommendations made by the Task Force.

Lawrence Dallaglio was no stranger to referees during his illustrious playing career

A fairly dry presentation was enlivened when one journalist had the temerity to suggest that task force member had cheated during his career.

The imposing former Wasps and England player took great umbrage at this, insisting he had often stretched the rules, but never broken them.

He then said that the report, allied with the , would help to restore the reputation of his sport.

Do you share his confidence?

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