STEPHEN JONES
Rugby’s most outspoken and influential journalist
OUR THEME in this edition is entertainment and the joy of rugby.
The way rugby is played at present, enmeshed in hundreds of mini-rucks, with both backs and forwards sucked in to play where the sun never shines, and with coaches keeping off-the-cuff plays to a minimum, often represents the death of individual genius; it mitigates almost totally against the worship of players of brilliance, those who you would pay to see even if they were playing on their own.
Individualism in rugby, and therefore the reverence extended to individuals, has been on the wane for a long time. The entertainers, the would-be men and women of genius, can appear fleetingly to thrill us, but otherwise they are hidden in interminable phases, something which all goes back to a horrible and ludicrous law change made towards the middle of the 1990s that effectively killed rugby as it once was.
But enough, let us go all smiley. We all have our favourite dazzlers, whether
