Six Nations squads are decimated by injury: rugby must heed the warnings | Andy Bull

Workload is up, wages are up, and severe injuries are up – rugby union can’t keep explaining away the number of absent players by saying it is the nature of the game. It never used to beAaron Carpenter is a rugby man, and has been since he was 13 and his brother first taught him how to play the game. Carpenter won 80 caps for Canada, which is a national record, and hundreds more for Coventry, Cornish Pirates, Doncaster Knights, and a bunch of other sides, including, when his schedule allowed, his home town team the Brantford Harlequins, where his mum is the club treasurer. He is the kind of pl…