When the pain

Don’t do it New Zealand. Don’t do a Brad Shields. Don’t sell your body for money and the glory of playing for another country. It will end in tears. It will end in a body that hurts every time you walk to the fridge.

Shields had played 45 minutes of his Wasps debut when he had to leave the pitch with a fractured cheekbone. Maybe he was just unlucky. Maybe it could have happened anywhere in the world. But to some it seemed like a grotesque symbol of the violent battering the modern European rugby player puts his body through week after week.

Shields said: ‘‘A broken face wasn’t the perfect start. My cheekbone cracked and moved along a bit, so they basically had to pull it back into place and screw it. They put a plate on my eyebrow and another one in my cheekbone through the inside of my mouth. Two titanium plates and a couple of screws. It’s fine now and I’m good to go. I’m not Wolverine just yet.’’

If only, Brad, if only. Wolverine has mutant healing powers. You are just another breakable man. For now Shields is fit to play for England against the All Blacks this weekend. He is fit to stare down TJ Perenara’s haka and chuckle at the thought of the England shirts that he left in the drawers of Beauden Barrett and Dane Coles. But how long will the laughter last.

You look at the England team and it is a scandal. They are down to their fifth-choice loosehead prop. Before the South Africa game 15 players were unavailable through injury. They included eight knee injuries, a calf, four ankles, a hand and an arm.

During the match against the Boks Tom Curry left the field with another ankle injury and looks almost certain to miss the All Blacks game. Last season Curry missed the autumn series with a wrist injury.

Last weekend Ken Owens, the Wales hooker, smashed his head in a midfield collision. Owens came back out onto the field early in the second half. A doctor