ONLY FOOLS OFFENDED BY INVERDALE

NOTED sexist John Inverdale is in trouble again, for implying Kate Middleton might not understand the rules of rugby. As Inverdale called the final stages of the match between France and Wales on Saturday, the camera panned to the Duchess of Cambridge. ‘I don’t know exactly how

au fait with the rules Kate is,’ he said, ‘but I assume she must have been struggling a bit in the last 20 minutes.’ Cue social media outrage. Shameful. Sexist. Misogynistic. It was pointed out that England rugby international Maggie Alphonsi is an ITV pundit, as if it follows that all women understand rugby. What confected nonsense. The truth is most men watching were pretty bemused, too. Indeed, if Kate did have a firm handle on what was unfolding World Rugby would be well advised to add her to the officials roster in time for Japan 2019. Where to start? That France won the game after 99 minutes and 55 seconds of play is probably a record for normal time. That this extra period, played entirely in front of the Welsh posts, contained eight penalties, one free-kick, 12 scrummages, one dismissal to the sin bin in the 82nd minute, an accusation of biting, a counter-claim that the victim bit himself, a player going off for a head injury who turned out to have a bad back but disappeared anyway, the quite legal reappearance of the player sent to the sin bin two minutes after normal play had ended, and ultimately the winning score, probably explains why it was variously described by respected observers as ‘chaos’ ‘extraordinary’ and ‘pandemonium’. ‘I am an old man,’ said France head coach Guy Noves, 63, ‘and I have never seen anything like this.’ So, amid the mayhem, faced with a random shot of a woman who to most minds is, quite literally, a bit of a Princess, Inverdale made the not unreasonable assumption that she was probably as perplexed by it all as the rest of us, male or female. This, apparently, makes him a sexist. It doesn’t. It makes precious fools of the legions of the offended, once again.