Minnows still thrown to sharp shooters

MANY of the most gruesome blood sports have been legislated out of existence. It’s called progress. You don’t see many goose-pulling tournaments these days; the fine art of fox tossing failed to make it into the 19th century; wolf-baiting has gone the way of all flesh, so to speak.

Yet when it comes to shooting fish in a barrel, rugby is still in it up to its neck. Fancy a splash of slaughter to make your weekend go with a swing? Head for France next year and watch Chile and Namibia cop both barrels from the best sides in the sport, to the tune of 80 points minimum.

You might think – and you’d be right – that expecting these teams to rock up at a World Cup and punch above their weight without proper preparation is cavalier at best and delusional at worst. It goes without saying that they need help. More than anything, they require fixtures. Which aren’t available, sadly. A glance at the programme for the forthcoming autumn internationals tells us that the lowest-ranked teams remain a long way off the radar.

Namibia, regulars at recent World Cups but never a priority for the governing class, are scheduled to play Romania in Bucharest at the start of November…and that’s it. Chile? They’ll be even less busy, with no matches at all.

Georgia, more competitive at Test level even though they don’t play enough Tests, at least have a meeting with Wales to get the juices flowing, but the likes of Tonga and Uruguay, both of whom have landed solid blows at World Cups past, are under-employed again.

It has to change, but it won’t. No money in the small fry, basically. And there we were thinking that minnow bashing had been banned.