New Zealand's Beauden Barrett and Ireland's Hugo Keenan following the All Blacks' RWC quarter-final win in the Stade de France, Paris in October 2023. Photograph: Dan Sheridan/Inpho
Rugby has its fair share of sceptics. There are people who only see the class aspect, the fee-paying schools and the blue-chip texture of the IRFU.
They don’t like the fact that one of rugby’s main points of difference with the rest of the planet is that it is not soccer.
They don’t like the old school crests and the club ties, the kind of cultural glue that holds the sport together.
They don’t like the battle imagery and the warrior memes that lionise openside flankers and tighthead props and inflate their status as latter-day gladiators.
They don’t like that rugby players pretend they are not hurt, while football players pretend that they are, and they don’t lik
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