Half an hour into a bristling, bruising West Country derby in the early 1990s, the genial Bristol beanpole Andy Blackmore was growing just a little tired of the Bath back rower Ben Clarke’s attempts to claim squatter’s rights in the ear of the referee.
“Why don’t you tell that Clarke bloke to shut up for a moment?” Blackmore asked the increasingly exasperated official, who had quite enough on his plate without a second player taking up residence in his auditory canal. “If he carries on like this, he won’t have enough breath to run around.”
Were the same game to be played today, Blackmore w...