Where football leads, rugby inevitably follows. So when can we expect the equivalent of a VAR cock-up to lord it over the national news bulletins and take root on the front pages of our Fleet Street organs?
It will happen, sooner rather than later – perhaps between now and the end of the World Cup, if one of the home nations is slaughtered in cold blood by a dodgy TMO call or a controversial red-card upgrade from the troglodytes hidden away in their screen-filled Parisian bunker.
There will be no rowing back, whatever happens: the people who run the world’s major sports have no interest in ...