Joe McCarthy: 'Every week in the Six Nations is massive but some games feel extra special'

He was still only 19 then and he recently became the youngest player to sign a central contract with the IRFU when taking up the offer of a three-year deal.

BIG JOE: Joe McCarthy has made quite the imppression since he first lined out for Ireland. Pic: ©INPHO/Ben Brady

Things that have, against all the odds, survived rugby’s shift from amateurism to professionalism: the British and Irish Lions, the old-school blazer … and the sort of mullet that ought to be outlawed everywhere outside of Texas.

Go back through the archives and it’s the southern hemisphere carrying the can for the worst offenders – and still does - but the trend seemed to go global at the last World Cup in France with all sorts of offenders from all manner of nations on view.