Natural justice is conspicuous by its absence in the union game. Think of the relegation-free protectionism of the Six Nations and the Premiership, or the World Cup fixture scheduling – less biased than it once was, but still tearing lumps out of the so-called “developing nations”. Can you detect any traces of fairness and virtue? Me neither.
And now we have the case of Paul Willemse, the 20st South African-born French lock who inflicted two shoulder-to-head hits on Irish forwards in Marseille (forcing one of them off the field for a concussion check), was carded for both, and was therefore ...