RUGBY MATTERS A weekly look at the game’s other talking points BRENDAN GALLAGHER

AND suddenly the World Cup warmups, or the summer internationals as the authorities and money men prefer to call them, are upon us. A strange phoney war period of Tests that don’t really feel like Tests, starting XVs that will often bear no resemblance to World Cup line-ups, new moves being kept under wraps and constant injury worries. Many of these games often feel like an extension of the three-month rolling training camps many of the teams concerned have been immersed in all summer. T...