Big hits

Rugby’s World Cup has been surprisingly engaging — hooray for the gallant grandeur of England, France and the other small-fry nations! It has been salutary for the Celts, however, with Wales and Ireland given such a contemptuous bums’ rush that each had to watch last weekend’s quarter-finals on television back in their own homes and behind closed curtains. If their self-esteem is in shock, it’s nothing to the severe clattering their bodies had to endure. Mind you, that goes, with knobs on, for the surviving teams still scrapping to contest next week’s final, for any rugby pitch is now a major crash site — bell-clanging ambulances, paramedics and all.

The skilful, expertly timed low tackle is a thrill of the past. The game no longer refers to tackles, but ‘hits’, preferably ‘big hits’, and the more hurtful, it seems, the better. Zap! Pow! Ughh! A sports injuries whitecoat-boffin said the other day that serious injuries in rugby had more than doubled since the game went professional a dozen years ago, with almost 70 per cent of them caused by one or other of those involved in heavy ‘hits’.