Greg Thomas isn’t just a poor spokesperson for Sanzaar, he’s a mouthpiece for an organisation that has become clearly biased to serving Sth African rugby. As if the slanting of semi-finals and final locations weren’t enough, we then have the debacle where the Crusaders can’t even get to Sth Africa with a reasonable rehabilitation window – clearly favouring the locals.

Then today, Greg feels it’s his and Sanzaar’s job to rule on the quality of a team. Where local players serve their country on the field that clearly shouldn’t impact their eligibility to play in the tournament. I can see how their ruling would be fair as applied to players joining from other teams, but where it involves national representation across the code its a cynical view to hold. To suggest that the players they’ve selected are better than Messam is, well, ridiculous.