We knew things were getting really bad last Saturday when the Irish rugby XV was down to an XI, and bidding fair to turn into a V. But it was when President Connolly came trotting down the steps from the VIP box in her Edwardian footer shorts reaching down to her shins that we all woke up to the depth of the crisis. Rugby was no longer a sport but a graveyard awaiting customers.
Has the IRFU got a protocol for when a front-row forward finally breaks his neck with the President watching, and is carried off, paralysed for life? Admittedly, it is not IRFU’s fault alone that the “sport” – time for a wry smile here, chaps – is now so deadly. The largely unpoliceable sumo pub-brawl that is the front row has internationally mutated into competition between spinal columns. The loser could well end up in a wheelchair at best, on a drip and nappies at worst, and maybe if he’s really really lucky, neither, and is instead buried with full IRFU honours at Deansgrange.
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