The giants who are spoiling it for all of us

POOR old Italy came up with plenty of solutions to the problems posed by Ireland in last week-end’s Super Saturday bunfight, but Dan Sheehan turned out to be a question without an answer. The three tries bagged by the Lions’ Test hooker-in-waiting were scored so effortlessly, they may have constituted the easiest slice of hat-trickery since Vladimir Putin’s run of victories in the Russian elections, all of which were free, fair and transparent. (Yeah, right).

- CHRIS HEWETT

Predictably, events in Rome were shaped by the all-too-familiar five-metre maul routine, which accounted for the first two Sheehan touchdowns. Without for a moment making light of the Dubliner’s lavish skill-set — on a good day, he looks uncannily like the world leader in his position — any mug could have left the Eternal City with at least 10 points to his name, tries from line-out mauls being a dime a dozen.

Any reasonable man or woman would expect World Rugby, the non-governing governing body, to address the issue, but that would involve the NGGB growing a pair and is therefore unlikely to happen this side of never. Still, it doesn’t stop us dreaming of a day when lineout tries are worth two points rather than five — or, even better, a full seven points are awarded to the defending team if, by some miracle, they find a way of defending the drive. That really WOULD be a disincentive.

A little over a year ago, the Ospreys hooker Sam Parry was quoted on the subject following a close-range scoring spree in the United Rugby Championship — the kind of spree freely associated with many of his fellow No.2s, most notably Tom Stewart of Ulster and Johnny Matthews of Glasgow. “It’s a thing of beauty when it’s perfected,” Parry said of the lineout maul. “The opposition just can’t stop it.”