New shirts which fair take your breath away

PETER JACKSON

THE RFU and WRU reacted to the cost-of-living crisis by joining forces in a display seen by many fans as another exercise in ripping the old shirt off their backs, then ripping them off again for a new one.

At £125, England‘s World Cup top is the most expensive of all. Replicas of Wales‘ new one are on sale at £78, still a hefty price for every exasperated parent to pay to keep their kids in the latest fashion.

Both countries change their strip with such indecent frequency that it’s almost impossible to keep track of them all. Wales have somehow managed to come up with a new change kit, some achievement considering they have exhausted just about every colour in the rainbow.

The latest creation, black and yellow, will be aired for the World Cup tie against Portugal in September. For a here-today-gone-tomorrow strip, Wales and England use promotional gobbledegook as a feeble attempt to disguise their rampant commercialism.

England’s kit is ‘designed to emphasise muscular biomechanics while the navy alternative shirt provides a confident and regal aesthetic.’

The Welsh version, ‘inspired by the national anthem,’ claims to ‘guarantee maximum strength as well as lightness and great breathability.’

Breathe-a-bleeding-bility! So all those fans short-changed by recurring Welsh failures during the Six Nations were barking up the wrong tree in thinking the players and coaches were responsible.

Now they know better, that it wasn’t a case of the wrong team but the wrong kit. Not enough breathability or, in England’s case, poor biomechanics.

The late Bill Shankly once told the Welsh pioneer of the television interview, the late Mavis Nicholson: “I use words everyone understands. You see, Mavis, if I think someone is avaricious, I don’t use the word avaricious. I say, he’s a greedy bastard and everyone understands.”

He would have his own simple word for breathability and biomechanics. It, too, begins with a B…