So Saracens are officially relegated. Perhaps we should first look at rugby’s overall landscape and assess how profoundly that has changed everything. Then we can deal with the murky depths into which the game has sunk, and ponder how rugby became one of the world’s most embittered and secret of societies.

And we can try to detect the sport’s supposed values in the fact that no one implicated in imposing the punishment on Saracens can summon up one word for the innocents — their players, followers, those who may now be left unemployed. They have expressed no concern about the ill effects on England of relegating the national team’s core; or the effect on the Saracens academy, the most successful production line for English talent.