He started, it turns out, as he meant to go on. The Millennium Stadium roof will be closed on Ireland and Canada on Saturday afternoon. But Jamie Cudmore will still seek out the shadows. That is where the second-row enforcer does his best work, where he sees clearest, where, in the yellow of Clermont Auvergne, he has had such a devastating impact on Irish hopes in the past.

Fashion and the economy have long been linked (although they’ll never admit to it).