Injury time

Eddie Jones’s sorrows as England’s rugby coach certainly keep coming in big battalions. Now the giant battered No 8 Billy Vunipola is out of the autumn internationals, and maybe longer. His brother Mako is hurt too, along with Sam Simmonds, Jamie George, former skipper Chris Robshaw, Joe Marler (retired) as well as Uncle Tom Cobley, the noted back row forager. They won’t go away, though, these injuries.

How do you get people to want to excel at a game not where you ‘might’ get injured but ‘will’ get injured, probably badly? Rugby at school level is an excellent game. The best players representing lst XVs in the Schools Cup are likely to turn pro and earn a good living. The game they currently play is contested by physical specimens you or I would recognise, the likes of which played top-level rugby a few decades back — men like Mike Slemen, David Duckham, JPR, Jean-Pierre Rives, etc.