TATTS HOW TO CAUSE A REAL ST-INK
ENGLAND players have been warned to cover up their tattoos at next year’s World Cup or risk being identified with Japanese gangsters.
Manu Tuilagi (below), Courtney Lawes, Joe Marler (bottom) and Jack Nowell are all heavily-inked members of Eddie Jones’ squad.
And a year to the day before the World Cup kicks off, organisers have urged teams not to display body art when using public facilities.
There is an association in Japan between tattoos and the Yakuza. Tournament boss Alan Gilpin said: “We’ve done a lot with the teams to get them to understand that.
“We will also make people aware, around the facilities players will use, that those with tattoos in a World Cup context are not part of the Yakuza.”
World Rugby revealed plans are in place in the event of a repeat of the earthquakes and typhoons that have battered Japan in recent days.
Boss Brett Gosper dubbed it the “most challenging” World Cup from an operational point of view. The country has had 480 earthquakes this year and this month was hit by its strongest typhoon for 25 years.
Gilpin said: “We’re planning right through from what happens if a team hotel or a training venue is lost, to what we do if a match venue is lost.”
Leicester boss Geordan Murphy says Will Spencer’s red card and subsequent four-week ban for a high tackle “could well be” a watershed moment in rugby.
The incident divided opinion between those arguing the game has gone soft and those tasked with player welfare. “It’s been massively polarising,” said Murphy, who regrets his initial “too PC” call. “It might seem I was taking a head injury lightly. That’s not me,” he said.