Sir, – I think April 27th will go down in the annals of rugby as the day the game all of us knew, played, lived, loved and watched changed forever. We saw one of the icons of European rugby marginally outperformed by a team of foreign mercenaries assembled at enormous cost at the whim of one wealthy individual.
He and his associates in French rugby and his counterparts in English rugby seem to think this is the way forward. It is not. It signals the death of rugby as we know it and heralds a future when ageing southern hemisphere and Pacific Island musclebound giants will dominate and destroy European rugby, and perhaps worse, encourage young Irish and other players to try and emulate the most likely unhealthy physical specimens that this version of the game demands.
I can’t think of an appropriate protest that all could participate in without further damaging our sport but I am sure there are those out there with the anger and the vision that can suggest a way forward. I for one will choose to play golf, do the garden, or my wife’s bidding rather than watch this travesty. Yours, etc,
DEREK MacHUGH,
Westminster Lawns,
Dublin 18