What a lousy, rotten organisation the Rugby Football Union has revealed itself to be this last week.

Derided by all in the game, the RFU’s headquarters at Twickenham has been exposed as an absolute viper’s nest. Knives are plunged into people’s backs with casual disdain.

Loyalty to staff? You must be joking. Brian Ashton has been treated absolutely disgracefully.

The so-called heart of English rugby is a shambolic, shameful organisation where thoroughly decent, hard working people are wrongly appointed in the first place and then knifed at will.

For the fact is, the Brian Ashton affair is by no means the first instance of Twickenham’s bungling.

First there was the crass error in letting Sir Clive Woodward walk away after England’s World Cup win in 2003.

Then came the next blunder - appointing coach Andy Robinson as No.1 in his place. Robinson is a good coach and a steady, reliable No.2.

He’s never a man to run a whole ship himself and anyone with the slightest vision, knowledge of rugby and acquired information would have known that.

Most of the game knew it when he was appointed to succeed Woodward – except those in charge at Twickenham, it seems. But then, they know it all themselves; they don’t need to listen to anyone else.

What the RFU are also inept at doing is learning from their own mistakes. Having failed to appoint a proper manager to run that side of the business when Robinson was coach, they then blamed ‘Robbo’ for the inevitable shambles and put the knife in his back.

Brian Ashton, whom the RFU had let drift away to Bath because he was fed up kicking his heels at headquarters, was then targeted as the ‘must have’ replacement. Because of their bungling, they are alleged to have had to pay Bath compensation to get him back, and out of his contract at the West Country club.

But they got their man and then committed the exact same mistake as they did with Robinson - not appointing an experienced manager to work alongside him and take the unwanted hassles off his shoulders.

England, however, confounded expectation by finishing runners-up at the World Cup, an un-dreamt of finish for so disorganised a rugby playing nation.

Then, in the Six Nations Championship that followed, Ashton steered England to their best finishing position in five years, runners-up. And then, following Rob Andrew’s review, it was indicated Ashton was safe and would carry on.

But then came his reward for those achievements, that familiar knife between the shoulders. It’s what the RFU do best, stabbing people in the back.

We can dismiss the role of Rob Andrew, the so-called Elite Rugby Director. All he has done is the bidding of those above him, not courageous enough to get their own hands bloody.

They forced Andrew to do their dirty work and he was a willing assassin. Would Rob do anything to imperil his own £250,000 a year salary ?

The man who has been there all along, who has presided over this utter shambles and this nasty, vicious approach to the rugby business is the Chief Executive, Francis Baron.

Under his charge, Robinson and Ashton have been abysmally treated.

Furthermore, what a name he has given English rugby. It simply stinks, and most of that is down to him and his decisions.

When I worked (briefly, thankfully) for the RFU a few years back, I equated it to working in a mausoleum. I’d never seen so many de-motivated people, so many glum, blank faces, nor seen so many people just trying to cover their own backs. You could understand the latter philosophy perfectly well.

And who was the Chief Executive of the RFU in those days? Yes, you guessed it. The same Aston Martin-driving Francis Baron.

Former England hooker Brian Moore has raged at the treatment of Ashton and called for Baron’s head. I thoroughly endorse such sentiments.

If English rugby is to have any hope whatever of restoring its good name, of salvaging any modicum of respect and decency, it has to sack Baron.

Rugby would be infinitely better off without people like him in it.