My old junior rugby coach, an intellectual man given to deep thoughts, was always at pains to emphasise that rugby was a violent game. If you weren’t willing to both withstand and commit acts of violence, he reminded us, this was not the game for you.
Violence was in the spotlight over the weekend, as much of the attention given to the latest Super Rugby round was devoted to the red cards given to Drua players Frank Lomani and Jone Koroiduadua for elbowing and headbutting respectively.
The ill-discipline of the Drua players was a big factor in the second-half meltdown that saw them blow a lead and succumb to the Rebels, and it showed up one of the reasons why rugby is such a difficult art to master: the requirement to marry high aggression and a strong desire to inflict physical violence on…
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