Let’s scrap the Six Nations

If you were one of the sharp-suited head honchos at CVC Capital Partners, the private equity megalith that has ploughed £365 million into the Six Nations, you might be wondering whether you had got your money’s worth. Sure, all the games are sellouts, from the Twickenham all-day piss-up to the gathering of the clans at Murrayfield to the joys of the Stadio Olimpico because, frankly, who doesn’t want a weekend in Rome? But the rugby’s another matter. It wasn’t the interminable scrum resets at Twickenham that did it for me, nor the endless water breaks, nor the turgid first half, but the shambles the next day in Italy’s forlorn battle with Ireland.

Rugby has always had a capacity to point both barrels at its feet, take aim and pull the trigger. But this was something special: when the young Georgian referee sent off replacement Italian hooker Hame Faiva midway through the first half for dangerous play (questionable), leaving Italy with 13 men for the rest of the match thanks to an obscure technical rule about the scrum, it effectively killed off the game, no matter how pluckily the Italians played (and they had pluck to burn).