Rugby's bloody rule more honoured in the breach

There is growing concern in rugby that the blood rule, which allows temporary substitutes to come on while an injured colleague receives treatment, is being abused.

The recent Test match between Australia and New Zealand seemed to indicate this when an Aussie was seen to saunter off with no obvious blood injury, only to return to the fray 20 minutes later.

It appears that some teams have used the blood rule as a means of resting players in a rolling substitution type of way. Given last week's bloody contest between Leinster and Connacht at Donnybrook, you might well forgive players for bending the rules a little. Surely a crack-down is imminent.