Mark Souster was today unveiled as the new rugby correspondent for The Times.
The appointment, ahead of the start of the domestic club season this weekend, follows the retirement last month of David Hands after 28 years in the role.
It is not certain, but it seems most unlikely that any of Hands’s intros in that time would have involved the vasectomy of a former England front-row, as Souster’s debut column as rugby correspondent did in today’s Times.
Souster has written for The Times since 1994, so his promotion to rugby correspondent had been expected, but was subject to some confirmation meetings with the newspaper’s management last week.
Sport at The Times has been particularly hard hit by the latest round of redundancies at the newspaper, with racing writer Julian Muscat, desk man Marcus Williams and football reporters Russell Kempson and Nick Szczepanik, all leaving as well as Hands.