MOST DECORATED SUBSTITUTE:

Sean Cronin (Ireland)

During the 11 years when Sir Gareth Edwards never missed a match for Wales, a number of very fine scrum-halves played out their careers without a glimmer of international recognition. Two who got near enough to act as official reserves managed roughly half a game between them.

In the days when ‘replacements’ were limited, Ray ‘Chicko’ Hopkins saw his Wales career start and finish on the same afternoon, at Twickenham in 1970 when he turned a lost cause into a winning one. They never picked him again.

Hopkins was lucky, not that he would agree. His time could be measured in minutes whereas Clive Shell’s lasted a matter of seconds. The only other scrum-half to appear during Edwards’ reign, Shell had about 90 of them at the end of a comfortable home win over Australia in 1973.

Cronin will have a rough idea how Hopkins and Shell felt. Ireland’s perennial No. 2 hooker won a Grand Slam from his natural habitat on the various benches to be found in Dublin, London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Paris and Rome.

Rory Best’s longevity explains why his Leinster counterpart has yet to make a Six Nations start despite making his Championship debut almost nine years ago. Since then all 30 appearances in the tournament have been as a sub. Cronin will probably be starting the defence of the Slam, against England at the Aviva Stadium in the New Year, on the bench he knows best of all.