People love rugby union for different reasons. Some relish the contact, the physical challenge, the survival-of-the-fittest mentality. Others cherish the ethos of unselfishness, the camaraderie and the dressing‑room humour. Spending an entire 80 minutes with one’s head, for example, wedged between two large pairs of buttocks encourages a perspective about fellowship and sacrifice that few other sports can match.

What it has never been is a game for robots. Coaches like to talk about consistency and doing the basics but rugby’s real beauty ultimately lies in its quirks and uncertainties. The ball can bounce anywhere, it is not impossible for two ridiculously contrasting body shapes to find themselves in direct opposition. Size matters, of course, but so do evasiveness, trickery and imagination.

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Entrenched tribal loyalties aside, such free spirits sell more tickets than anything else the game can offer. Rugby rightly celebrates its monster trucks but, for maximum impact, it needs – beep beep! – its road runners as well. A big tackle or a powerfully driven maul will generate a visceral thrill but a little guy weaving in and out of heavy traffic, all of it intent on crushing him to a pulp, lends the sport its extra dimension.

How ironic, then, that in the week the great Lions and Wales stand-off Phil Bennett turns 70, English rugby appears to be growing more size‑ist by the week. Everyone accepts players’ heads need protecting but red-carding slightly built creative fly-halves for the heinous crime of trying to slow down the snorting rhinos charging at them does not feel, for this particular branch of the entertainment business, much like progress.

And then there is the saga of Christian Wade, who now wants to try his luck in American football having won a solitary cap for England. It is fair to say Wade has generated as much attacking electricity as anyone who has played Premiership rugby in the past decade but, for whatever reason, successive England coaches have decided his lack of poundage represents too great a risk.

There was a time a couple of seasons ago when Wade was as unplayable as Jason Robinson or Shane Williams, who scored 90 Test tries between them. He would pop up where people would not expect and, by the time they realised, it was invariably too late. At 5ft 8in and 13st 5lb he is taller and weighs more than Williams, one of Wales’s modern greats.

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It would be lovely to think that, at 27, it is not too late for him to take a completely different sport, not to mention a continent, by storm. The odds are stacked against him but it will be fun watching him try when and if his contractual situation with Wasps is resolved. The Premiership, either way, will be a duller, more predictable place without him.

That last sentence alone should be cause for concern among those responsible for growing the club game – or flogging it off to the highest bidder as it is now apparently known. A sport looking to reduce the number of damaging collisions surely needs to protect as many of its will-o’-the-wisps and space invaders as possible. Sadly, even in age-group rugby, almost the only positions where it is now feasible to pick such players is at 9, 15 or, at a stretch, 10 if they can kick well enough. Fly-halves who do not tackle like Owen Farrell, as we are now seeing, are starting to be seen as luxury items.

The game is undoubtedly changing and some are being squeezed out. The increasing prevalence of the cross-kick has made it almost compulsory to field wings who can compete for a high ball without either being brushed away or easily out-jumped. It is only necessary to look at the dimensions of the youngest wing named in Eddie Jones’s autumn squad to receive a glimpse of the future. Joe Cokanasiga of Bath, aged 20, is 17st 6lb and almost 6ft 4in. His barnstorming early try against Wasps on Saturday was hugely impressive – only for Joe Simpson and Josh Bassett to outfox the young giant for a try down the blind side to prove there is more than one way to skin a big cat.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Joe Cokanasiga of Bath breaks clear to score the first try during the Champions Cup match against Wasps at the weekend. Photograph: David Rogers/Getty Images

Is there an easy answer to all this? Not really, short of giving one player on each side a special bib – which can be given only to individuals below a certain size and weight – that requires anyone tackling them to make contact from waist level down only. Or, conceivably, embracing the idea of a collective weight limit for every matchday squad. Neither would have been remotely necessary a decade ago but Wade’s departure, whether born out of personal frustration or not, should concentrate minds. If rugby becomes a game solely for pre-programmed, muscular robots it will alienate a large chunk of its audience.

Instant replay

There is no word yet as to whether Bruce Craig’s bid to have Bath’s opening European Champions Cup pool game against Toulouse replayed has gained any official traction. The game as a whole, it is fair to say, is not exactly holding its breath. But what if the organisers did somehow cave in, accept Bath’s argument there was a grievous time-keeping error and set a ludicrous precedent by allowing the game to be replayed with only two seconds left on the clock? It has happened before in US basketball in 2008, when the Atlanta Hawks and the Miami Heat were required to replay the last 51.9 seconds of their NBA game. Atlanta won without scoring a point. Bath may fancy their chances but there is also a significant risk attached – one crooked line-out throw would make them a worldwide laughing stock.

And another thing …

England travel to Portugal this week for a warm-weather training camp before the autumn series. Their opening Test against South Africa will be less than 48 hours away by the time the players return, with the team also being formally announced in the Algarve. It is the first time an England team have deliberately sought to turn a non-World Cup game at Twickenham into an away fixture. Maybe they should give South Africa, who will have been based in London all week, the home dressing room.