Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

Well, three days on from our loss at the Rugby World Cup and we’re still not over it... clearly.  It’s still front-page news, the dissertations and opinions continue, disputes over how it was reffed, anger over the TMO and officiating of the game continue. But let’s face the hard facts: the best team won on the day.   Painful as it is, relitigating red cards versus yellow ones as we might, hating the TMO as we all do... it doesn’t change the facts. The best team won on the day.  We couldn’t get our act together in a sloppy first half, we couldn’t pull it off in the second, we didn’t win.   Sad but true.   Death threats to Wayne Barnes and all the other nonsense which has come out of the loss is futile and detracts from the reality. Which is that beyond the nitpicking over all the minutiae of that one game, a broader conversation needs to be had around what’s happening to rugby.   The Herald’s Luke Kirkness said, “Rugby union is facing a looming crisis. The game is losing its appeal with many turning to altern