Long faces questions over betting claims

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Banned in 2004 for betting on his club St Helens to lose a Super League match at Bradford, Long whipped up a storm by implicating his team-mates and players from Bradford in that incident.

In 'Booze, Brawls, Sex and Scandal', Long also revealed he stood to win around £3,000 after placing bets totalling £70 on a drop goal opening the scoring in a Saints fixture at Leeds in 1998, but the bet was foiled when Leeds opened the scoring with a try and Long admits: "I was almost in tears."

Long's book lives up to the title, with a series of unsavoury tales of his various escapades, invariably alcohol-fuelled, and tells all about his sudden departure from the 2006 Tri Nations tour Down Under.

He recalls how he deliberately flouted a drinking ban on the night of Great Britain's defeat by New Zealand and how he drank Baileys from a protein shake bottle on the flight from Wellington to Sydney the following morning.

A homesick Long admits his heart was never in the tour in the first place and that he had planned to leave even before Great Britain's famous win over Australia.