Pulver and his cohorts must go now

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• For the sake of rugby, Australian Rugby Union chief executive and self-proclaimed "custodian of the game" Bill Pulver must go NOW, Greg Growden writes.

The Kurtley Beale text message scandal continues to hang heavy over the Wallabies, but Nick Phipps denies the squad has a culture of misogyny. Beale was fined AUS$45,000 (£24,666) last week for forwarding an obscene photo to former staff member Di Patston, but the scandal threatens to deepen as the ARU's handling of the affair comes under increasing scrutiny.

Phipps said the controversy had been a distraction as the Wallabies embarked on their five-match tour of Europe, and the players badly wanted to put it behind them, but the scandal again was a hot topic as nominated interviewees Phipps and defence coach Nathan Grey fielded a range of questions on the issue from Australian and British reporters at Monday's press conference.

Phipps refuted a suggestion the scandal was in any way a reflection of the side's attitude towards women, saying ahead of Saturday's tour opener against the Barbarians at Twickenham that he had "noticed a lot of people are sort of talking about people's views on harassment in the workplace and things like that ... it doesn't reflect at all on the playing group, we're fully supportive of women in sport and we always will be".

Phipps said "I find it funny that gender is always brought into it" but he did not know enough about Patston's work as Wallabies business manager to comment on her directly. "If women are good enough to do the job, I'd love them to be there," Phipps said.

The ARU has come under pressure to investigate more fully who sent the second text message, and also the confrontation between Beale and Patston on a flight to Argentina last month, while Patston, who resigned a fortnight ago, has criticised the process and said she was made to feel "degraded" and "worthless".

Phipps hopes the Wallabies can get rugby back in the headlines for the right reasons when they begin life under new coach Michael Cheika, who took over Ewen McKenzie, who resigned in the wake of the scandal.

"You only have to look on Twitter and see a new article pop up about something, and I guess that does affect the boys a little bit," Phipps said. "Hopefully over here we can play well enough to get articles written about how the boys are playing."