RUGBY MATTERS
BRENDAN GALLAGHER
A weekly look at the game’s other talking points

Uprise: Edward Colston’s statue is ripped down in Bristol last week

Rugby, the winter sport of choice of many middle and upper class white males from the moment William Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran in 1823, has often had to grapple with the big issues in society, not least those concerning the old British Empire.
For many decades it was alas the wrong side of the apartheid debate, maintaining close sporting relations with old friends in South Africa and providing succour to their hatef...