One way or another, rugby is breeding players who expect to be told what to do rather than express themselves
Do they believe it? The coaches who say, in response to complaints on social and mainstream media, that spectators have never had it so good? Like those who believe that a no-deal
Brexit will be the best thing for the country since the Glorious Revolution of 1688, they want to believe it.
They have to believe it because they are part of it. “Used to love it, now boring, boring down,” is the start of a poem by Guardian reader Mark Lewis called Rugby Union. “Bang it up the middle,” it continues. “Bang it up the middle. Fall down. Ruck. Scrum-half forms a committee … Box kick. Ruck. Crunch it up the middle … Fall over. Ruck.”