CHRIS HEWETT
THINKING ALLOWED

SINCE time immemorial, rugby has been cloaked in its own cliches: Prince Obolensky was always “dashing”; Colin Meads lived his life as an “unsmiling giant”; Martin Johnson was rarely anything other than “beetle-browed”; and Billy Vunipola, easier to stop with an elephant gun than he is with a Taser according to recent evidence from a latenight bar in Mallorca, will forever be known as “the man who shamed the shirt he wasn’t wearing”.
Combinations have been stereotyped just as much as individuals, as many a loose forward will confirm. Openside flankers? They i...