It's an old joke, with a touch of truth about it.
When an England supporter on tour in New Zealand pops into a one-horse-town corner shop to buy some chewing gum, the 90-year old woman behind the counter says: “That’ll be 50 cents, my dear, and by the way – your No.7 is rubbish.”
They are still talking about openside flankers down there in All Black country – sometimes, it seems as though they speak of little else – but there is a fresh twist to the conversation these days.
Instead of dissecting and then dismissing opposition breakaways with scalpel-sharp insults and airy wafts of the hand, ...