The bungled move to professionalism and the turf wars that followed; the “Bloodgate” scandal and the soul-destroying bankruptcies; the player welfare class action, the private equity land-grabs, the boardroom meltdowns so embarrassing that Twickenham executives were thrown in the Westminster stocks and pelted with rotten eggs by MPs – all things considered, the union game experienced more upheavals in the 28 years separating the two World Cup finals between South Africa and New Zealand than in the previous 100, by a factor of infinity.
We have neither the time nor the space to write the hist...