CHRIS HEWETT

“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all.” These words, or something like them, have been sung by a thousand bluesmen down the years, none of whom, it is reasonable to suggest, ever heard of Joe Launchbury.
Which is probably as well, because anyone writing a song about Joe would have to spend more time than was good for him ransacking the dark night of his soul.
Launchbury spent the early part of his career as a professional engineroomer understudying Simon Shaw, his elder and better at Wasps. Shaw had suffered so many slings and arrows – horrible injuries, c...