Too Cold For Snow

against an Italian side that had all the power of a Panzer division in their forward line. At half time the LCD display pumped out the message ‘Get Well Soon’.
    Outside the clinic, the chief reporter studies the unfamiliar lexicon she is going to use for the first of her live broadcasts. There are the unchangeable facts such as the Adam’s apple, the one thing Keiron can’t change other than shrink it in size, and then there all the other options such as ‘suction-assisted lipoplasty of the waist, rhinoplasty, facial bone reduction, the conventional face-lift, and blephroplasty’. As stories go this one was supremely different, she had to give him that. She mouthed the words again. Ble-phro-plasty. On in five.
    Six hours later and the effects of the gas had worn off. Keiron, in his private room, reached between his legs. He was as smooth as a Gilbey’s match play rugby ball. There were three weeks to go before the next international and he was determined to play, against medical advice, without insurance if it came to that.
    Wales’ next game was a clash of juggernauts: Croker Park in Dublin. On that fateful Saturday the Irish were taking no prisoners and were going to take Keiron out. They were sick to the gills of hearing about him on TV and radio. They knew he’d been advised by all the medical staff not to play so soon after the operation but he’d said, with a cocky arrogance, that he’d take just one precaution, namely that he wasn’t going to be tackled by anyone. Which was a big ask of anyone, especially as he was a marked man. Man? Huh! The Irish coach had found himself in a vat of hot water when he suggested that Wales was starting with just fourteen men. Keiron was impervious to such bear baiting. In the changing room before the game Keiron asked if anyone had any objections to his putting a hundred points on them.
    ‘I’ll need all your help mind. I’m still a bit delicate after the operation so if you could just block a few tackles when they’re coming my way that would be just hunky dory.’ His team members surrounded him as a phalanx and said they’d defend him to the death.
    It was a capacity crowd and they were expecting such a gargantuan TV audience that the engineers in the control room of the National Grid were predicting a huge energy drain at half time as kettles went on across the land. An economist on Radio Wales predicted that the equivalent to eleven million pints of beer would be drunk in pubs, clubs and homes across the land. He also surmised a slump in economic productivity on Monday should Wales win and a worse slump if they lost.
    The Royal Welsh Fusiliers band couldn’t be heard above the hubbub. All of the television commentary focused on Keiron and for the BBC coverage they’d taken the unusual step of ascribing two cameras just to him, so they could follow his every move. The crowd had made placards to show their support. ‘She’s the Best’, said one. ‘Never Miss a Try’, said another.
    When the teams took to the pitch there was an unearthly roar.
    When Keiron came out, already a little curvy from the hormones, the Welsh fans drummed up ecstasies. During the warm-up many in the crowd scrutinised the images of him on the big screen, curious to see the physical changes and, most importantly, because of a nervousness that ‘losing your tackle means losing your tackle’ as one newspaper pundit put it.
    The Irish side had marked him for as many bone crunchers as they could mete out. It wasn’t just his fiery skills they wanted to dampen down but also the buzz of idolatry that was generated around him. If they could break him they could break the team. It was a brave move and an unpopular one. But first they had to catch him. From the opening whistle, when Ireland’s kick off ball landed squarely in the cradling arms of one of the Welsh props there was a confidence about the Welsh team that verged on a swagger. They ran forward with fluency and took risks as if these were the closing moments of the match, not the opening salvos of what settled into a fully fledged physical game at the first set piece. The Irish scrum seemed like an advert for steroids, their legs pedaling like cyclists and the front row pushing forward in an outrageous muscle surge. The Welsh pack wasn’t just taken aback but were taken back, losing fifteen yards because of this almighty push.
    The ball sped out and would have passed deftly all along the back line until Keiron managed to