Where Eddie Jones is going wrong

Rugby Union, bloody hell. We’ve got to talk about Eddie, but before that, what about something much cheerier? Just when it seemed the game was for the big bruisers of northern Europe and the southern hemisphere, Italy show us that it ain’t necessarily so. It seemed impossible that anyone could upstage France’s victory parade on the last day, but that is just what Italy’s heroic XV did, by upsetting the only team that had come close to bringing down Antoine Dupont and his crew of Gallic legends.

Already the best try of the tournament – and the sporting highlight of the year so far – has been set to ‘Nessun dorma’. It was a piece of sublime and utterly unexpected brilliance made more glorious by its timing (the last move of the match), its result (a one-point victory over Wales), and its architect, full-back Ange Capuozzo, a fresh-faced magician coming in at 11 stone, less than half the weight of one French prop.