Stopwatch away! It's quality time that counts

Thanks to the “game clock” and a scrum process best measured in light-years, top-end Rugby Union matches generally last between 85 and 90 minutes – or, to put it another way, slightly longer than an England innings on a dry and dusty turner in India.

But this is only half the story, as followers of the “other code” never tire of telling us. Rugby League takes pride in many things, usually at considerable volume, with “ball-in-play time” top of the list: somewhere in the region of 62 minutes, on average – almost twice the figure in the 15-man game.

This significant difference has persuaded many of the people running the Union at a professional level to treat it as a serious issue. It is therefore important to point out that there is much less to the argument than meets the eye.

A bad game of Union is not necessarily made better by more ball-in-play time: quite the opposite in examples as egregious as last year’s Autumn Nations Cup – a tournament so profoundly dispiriting it drove legions of viewers out of their houses in breach of lockdown restrictions. When the half-time break makes the highlights package, you know things are grim.

There was a prime illustration of this a week ago when Harlequins welcomed Northampton to The Stoop. The first half, with the ball in play for just over 17 minutes, was as compelling as it was error-strewn – an end-to-end jamboree full of dash and adventure, memorably described by one of the visiting coaches as “bonkers”.