When the Bristol tight-head prop Paul Guttridge was sent off during a league match with Leicester in front of a big crowd at the Memorial Ground in 1993, the home side responded in time-honoured fashion by ordering the youngest, most expendable member of their remaining pack to fill the hole in the front row. Step forward Simon Shaw, a second row maestro in the making but at this point still a student in his teens.
No one doubted the kid’s physical potential – he looked as though he had been fed on steaks bigger than the animals from which they had been butchered – but at ...