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A scrum in sevens. We can attest that forwards Justin and the Andrews still have teeth in their heads and that their ears are not calcified.

There’s a rugby-playing character in The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis. He is Adriano, an aristocratic Italian midget.

“Adriano was the hooker, and did his work in the fulcrum of the pack. How he especially relished it, he said, at the commencement of a scrum, when the six heads came smashing together! It was normally the hooker’s job, Keith knew, to backheel the ball into the tread of the ten-legged melee that strained at his rear. But it was a different story, apparently, with I Furiosi: as the clash began, Adriano simply raised and crossed his little legs, so that the men behind him (the second row) could rake their studs down the knees and shins of the opposing front line. He said,

‘Most effective. Oh, I can promise you. Most effective.’

‘. . .But doesn’t anyone put a stop to it?’ said Scheherazade. ‘And don’t they take their revenge?’

‘Ah, but we are equally famed for our indifference to injury. I am the only Furiosi forward with an unbroken nose. The lock is blind in one eye. And neither prop has a tooth in his head. Also, both my ears still hold their shape. Not yet even calcified’. . .”

The BBC Sport guide to positions in rugby union: the hooker.

Why don’t you ask a hooker if he wears a miniskirt, stiletto heels and make-up to a match.