UNLIKE Basil Fawlty's duck, rugby matches at their most gripping really are served up in “extremely different ways”.
Take last weekend's Harlequins-Wasps game, in which the ageold rivals shared 94 points and a dozen tries, the last of them deep in overtime.
The fact that Quins were down to 14 men proved irrelevant, largely because Marcus Smith played like two blokes in one pair of shorts, and it was entirely appropriate that he should have won it at the death. He's some player in the making, that lad.
Generally speaking, right-thinking rugby folk are suspicious of contests in which there are more points than minutes. The great All Blacks-Springboks confrontation in 1956 yielded only 70 points and 13 tries in four whole Tests; when the Lions drew in New Zealand last time out, there were only nine tries in the entire series.
Time and again in recent years, the people running the sport have failed to make the obvious distinction between quantity and quality by insisting, bone-headedly, that tries and entertainment are one and the same thing.
Like the best cricket, which rests on a balance between bat and ball, the best rugby depends on proportionality between attack and defence. High-scoring games with optional tackling are about as interesting as millet.
There was nothing optional in south-west London seven days ago, including the red card shown to Mike Brown for some retro footwork on the head of Tommy Taylor.
It was a sad way for the England full-back to end his long career in the pastel-shaded shirt, but at least he wasn't bored watching the contest unfold without him.
