"We should talk about the great entertainers every issue -rugby is meant to be fun!"

Stephen Jones waxes lyrical on the players who have thrilled him the most down the years with their guts as much as their skill

- STEPHEN JUNES

OUR THEME in this edition is entertainment and the joy of rugby.The way rugby is played at present, enmeshed in hundreds of mini-rucks, with both backs and forwards sucked in to play where the sun never shines, and with coaches keeping off-the-cuff plays to a minimum, often represents the death of individual genius; it mitigates almost totally against the worship of players of brilliance, those who you would pay to see even if they were playing on their own.

Individualism in rugby, and therefore the reverence extended to individuals, has been on the wane for a long time. The entertainers, the would-be men and women of genius, can appear fleetingly to thrill us, but otherwise they are hidden in interminable phases, something which all goes back to a horrible and ludicrous law change made towards the middle of the 1990s that effectively killed rugby as it once was.

But enough, let us go all smiley. We all have our favourite dazzlers, whether they are from past eras or even a few in the present. You as the reader will be treasuring your own favourites, you can even write to us to reveal them.

Entertainers. Individuals. They bring you out of your seat. The most thrilling player I have ever seen would be Jeremy Guscott. Watching him operate outside Stuart Barnes and Simon Halliday for Bath in the amateur days was a pure joy. The pace, the change of pace, the gliding style, the breaks, the judgement.