HERE’S a thought: if Dorothy Parker had played rugby, she’d have run rings around Rieko Ioane, Johnny Sexton, Brodie Retallick, Peter O’Mahony and Israel Dagg. Not, you understand, in the passing, catching, kicking and try-scoring parts of the game, but in the really important bit – namely, the trading of insults.
During last autumn’s World Cup quarter-final between New Zealand and Ireland, Ioane said something pathetically cheap to Sexton, who said something back, while Retallick aimed a retaliatory flurry at O’Mahony, who had thrown his vers...