A FRONT ROW VIEW OF THE GAME
JEFF PROBYN

Twenty-eight years ago I was playing in a Five Nations tournament that was, in effect, a selection trial for the 1989 Lions trip to Australia. No squad announcements had been made so, as players, we all knew that every game we played would either give us a ticket for the plane or leave us at home because we weren’t good enough.
There was of course a third option.
This was when you were sacrificed because of age, or because not enough players from one of the other Home Union countries had been selected. If the latter occurred, a political deci...