The day Bologna was a graveyard for Irish rugby

Very few landscapes offer as much scope for bending the truth as the American Wild West but the old Five Nations may give it a run for its money and among the myths routinely offered up as unvarnished truth is the one about how the Parc des Princes was a sort of overpopulated ‘Boot Hill’ for so many Irish players’ careers down the years.

This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

— Newspaper reporter Charlie Hasbrouck in the 1962 western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance