Ronan O'Gara: Some days you realise just how fragile everything is

When we were contacted last Friday morning via the Lions about Hyron Andrews, the only thing I could think of was how beyond freaky this was ten years to the morning when Garrett Fitzgerald rang me in Paris about Axel.

A minute of silence is observed in memory of Lion's player Hyron Diego Andrews before the Champions Cup group A match between the Bulls and Stade Francais at the Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria. Pic: Phil Magakoe/Getty

THE Bataclan slaughter in Paris in 2015. Axel in Paris a year later. The Christchurch terror attacks in 2019, and the death of young Hyron Andrews last Saturday outside La Rochelle.

You can treat these episodes like isolated detonations for sure, but no one around here is going to pretend being up too close and very personal to these deaths and disasters doesn’t give pause for thought.