Playing catch up: Germany’s Christopher Hilsenbeck kicks clear against Georgia
PICTURE: Getty Images

During the decidedly uncivil English war over control of the nascent professional game, Cliff Brittle had a dream which sounds as impossible today as it did then. From his bunker at Twickenham, the RFU’s embattled chairman outlined his vision of a new rugby empire with a sentence which might have had Sir Winston Churchill turning in his grave: “What we need is a strong Germany.’’
Whether he said so before or after his dust-up at The Navy Club with Sir John Ha...