It is one thing for a populist Prime Minister to ride a wave of duplicity before crashing head-first into the rocks: if a chap can’t do what he likes with his very own brand of snake oil, what’s the world coming to?
Using the Bouclier de Brennus as a skimboard? That’s just a little different. The Bouclier belongs to the whole of French rugby, surfers and non-surfers alike. If Antoine Dupont and Romain Ntamack are among its current custodians, they hold it under the strict terms of a one-year lease. Best look after it, just in case.
Yet the beach footage of the brilliant Toulouse half-backs celebrating their Top 14 victory over La Rochelle brought at least half a smile to the face.
Both men play their rugby with a level of exuberance way above the norm and if President Macron himself said it was okay to let rip – the father of the nation downed a bottle of beer in one during a visit to the winning dressing room, although it seemed to take him an unusually long time – who were they to argue?
It’s not as if the Bouclier is an outlier in this regard. The John Player Cup, the Heineken Cup, you name it – they’ve all been drunk from, stood on, rammed onto someone’s head, used as a receptacle for various forms of liquid (some more alluring than others), even hidden under a car parked on the halfway line after a night on the sauce.
Way back in the day, the England No.8 Dean Richards (a police officer at the time) and the Scotland flanker John Jeffrey (currently next in line for the chairmanship of World Rugby) reduced the Calcutta Cup to tin in the streets of Edinburgh. High spirits, shrugged some. Gutter behaviour, fumed others. Thirty-odd years on, the debate continues.
Plus ca change…
