Rob Houwing | Farrell's free pass is rugby high farce

"Player welfare" ... before rugby union turned out-and-out professional in 1995, it was hardly a vogue catchphrase in the game.

Those were still times of occasional, punch-raining mass brawls, nonchalantly unpunished coat-hanger tackles and an "anything goes" attitude to stamping and raking of a player audaciously caught behind enemy lines at ruck time - the victim accepted that he was, by and large, fair game for the frenzied studs.

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