Rugby has to deal robustly with this spite for sore eyes
Eye-gouging in rugby is nothing new but it has no place in the cleaned-up modern game insists Eddie Butler in the Guardian.
"The stamp on the head remains the great taboo of rugby. I remember Chris Ralston, the England second-row, requiring a score and more of stitches to repair stud damage to his swede. Suspicion not unnaturally fell on the feet of Llanelli, if only because they were running around the same field as Ralston's Richmond. The scandal raged for days, without anyone being brought to book. It remains one of the unsolved crimes of the sport.
"But the boot to the bonce has slipped way down the list and lies at rest, only just above the stiletto blade that occasionally crept into the stockings of French villagers on derby days in the 1930s. The dear, dear 30s: the good old days of violence."
RSS feed
