Rugby a game for thugs? More like dictators.
A quiz being run with the cup recently noted Ugandan dictator Idi Amin's links to rugby.
He was reserve for East Africa in a match with the touring Lions back in 1955.
So watch those cup players. There could be a few budding dictators on
display.
* * *
And so it's goodbye to the minnows. After the weekend's games, the likes of Japan, Romania, Namibia and Uruguay are all heading home. And, naturally, we all thank them for coming. Shows rugby is a world game, interesting diverse nations, colourful people, great sense of fun and so on and so on.
But the most interesting thing many provided were the coaches. If the teams could play with as much bite as their coaches talked, then Mitchell and his men would be sweeping the streets. They were guys like the redoubtable Jim Love who rightly pointed out that his Tongan players were being treated like "second class citizens". Or Georgia coach Claude Sorel who noted after his side were crushed 84-6 by England that the English were stressed, predictable and beatable. Hopefully he will prove prophetic.
But, of course, the champion coach has to be Namibia's Dave Waterston who spoke out on the unfairness of the refereeing. ("The tragedy is that if you're a ref and you want the big appointments you've got to lick the backsides of the top nations.")
They will be missed.
