In the ever-changing flux that is the rugby world’s balance of power, an intriguing point of reference will be established in Bordeaux on Sunday. We are nearly 30 years into rugby union’s professional era. There are teams rising and falling all over the place, as the new economic, political and cultural energies play out. In this context, Wales against Fiji feels particularly poignant.
Two countries high on rugby passion, low on resource; one a part of the old order, the other always in the middle of the deep-blue sea watching on from afar. Both famed, at least in the easy stereotypes of legend, for playing the rugby of romance.
