ENGLISH rugby lost two hugely underrated stalwarts this past week, neither of whom really made the headlines, but whose contributions were significant nonetheless. John Barton played 265 times at lock – and occasionally in the back row – for Coventry when Cov were one of the world’s great club sides, winners of the fledgling RFU Knockout Cup and a team that on more than one occasion fielded ten or more England internationals.
Barton was one of them but his Test career is curious in the extreme. In his youth, raw-boned and athletic, he broke into the England team in 1967 an...