ALMOST every professional sports person these days is surrounded by a veritable army of spin doctors. That’s why so many sports stars come across as bland and even unhelpful, for they are trained not to risk the loss of things like sponsorship by saying something offensive or stupid.

Every so often, however, the veneer slips away. After what can only be called the Weekend of the Big Mouth, let’s look at five people in particular.

In no order of preference, we’ll start with Warren Gatland, head coach of the British and Irish Lions, and his opposite number in charge of the all Blacks, Steve Hansen.

Here is a brief and paraphrased recap of what they had to say about the tackles inflicted on Lions scrum-half Connor Murray.

“Your boys were trying to cripple my boy” said Gatland. “Aw grow up” said Hansen. Sort of.

In this case, Gatland is possibly in the right in trying to protect his player, but there was no reason to go public as he should simply have had a word with the referee of the next game, and indeed if he was concerned during the match he should have got his captain to tell the referee on Saturday, Jaco Peyper, about the dangerous but legal tackles.

There is no doubt that the All Blacks try to bully and intimidate the opposition and they do so to the full extent of the laws and sometimes beyond that. But the way to beat them is not to go whinging after the game, but get your players on the field to stand up to the Blacks and biff them right back – be assured that they do not like it.

It is no coincidence that the only Lions to win a series in New Zealand back in 1971 included the likes of Mighty Mouse Ian McLauchlan who never knowingly took a backwards step in his life.

Plenty others in that Lions squad – Big Broon frae Troon, Willie John McBride, and Mervyn Davies spring to mind – were able to dish it back to the Blacks and that went along way to securing the series victory. I am not advocating mayhem by the 2017 Lions but they are going to have to step up to the line and, above all, vary their tactics if they are to have the chance of win over the world champions.

After watching the game twice there is no doubt in my mind that the All Blacks did what they do so very well, and that was to be bullies, especially up front where the Lions’ front five were bested by their opponents.

It was not a bad performance by the Lions but Gatland’s selections and tactics were cruelly exposed, with the wrong players playing a game that the All Blacks knew they would play.

Gatland has one game to rescue his reputation but my prediction that the All Blacks would win all three matches is looking very good at the moment.

Then we had Lewis Hamilton and his verbal spite with Sebastian Vettel.

There is again no doubt in my mind that the Ferrari driver was very much in the wrong when he ran into the back of the Mercedes. The sideswipe immediately afterwards was just petulance on behalf of Vettel, and he very nearly paid a big penalty for that.

Hamilton went public with its criticism of Vettel who was totally out of order – the merest L plate driver gets told that if you run into someone’s rear end then you are at fault.

On balance I think Hamilton was justified in going public because the people in charge of Formula One only ever really react when matters hit the headlines.

Nevertheless all these verbals completely detracted from the excellence of Daniel Ricciardo’s superb win in Baku, and that was terribly unfair on the Red Bull driver.

The fifth and final Big Mouth of the weekend was Dave King, chairman of Rangers.

In Glasgow he is what is known as a wind up merchant, who plays to the gallery of Rangers fans as well as trying to noise up the opposition, ie: Celtic.

His suggestion that Celtic only won two titles because Rangers weren’t competing against them would have been a great joke if only for the fact that he was apparently being serious at the time.

I am glad to say that the Rangers fans of my acquaintance did not take the chairman seriously for a second, because they knew he was at the wind up.

In any case, if I was King, I wouldn’t be challenging any other team’s right to claim a title at the moment given that the UK Supreme Court has still to decide on the big tax case. In fact, if I were him I wouldn’t mention titles at all as it may just remind people like those Celtic shareholders who put forward resolution 12, and maybe even Peter Lawwell or Dermot Desmond themselves, that there is still an issue over how Rangers won their five championships from 2003 to 2011 – “we could not have afforded the players,” Sir David Murray said on oath.

At least the Rangers fans retain the sense of humour. One of them told me that if you follow King’s logic about changing history then Celtic might just make a case that they have won 17 in a row, while another said that the summer signings by Rangers from Catholic countries will hopefully shut up that Tory MSP Murdo Fraser, as his Queen’s XI is now the Pope’s XI.

That’s another thing about sports people these days – only the fans still laugh.