What is it about rugby that sees the posh game lord it over the poorer cousins of soccer and GAA among our ruling elite?

It’s not just its proliferation as the sport of choice among the fee-paying private schools that work as feeder schools to the top of politics and the professions.

Nor is it the fact that it was first the sport of our former colonial masters, which you’d think would work against it, but look at cricket in India.

And it isn’t because it’s a simple game you can play anywhere, on any street, with jumpers for goalposts, soccer wins on that one.

No, it’s something more, it’s at the core, something more primal.

It’s something uniquely Irish and at the same time universal, that joint longing to belong to high society, in this case, Anglo-Irish upper class, and then to beat them at their own game.

This is manifest in the Dail itself, where charity and challenge rugby matches are all the rage with our politicians.

Dublin Rathdown Fine Gael TD Neale Richmond is the latest one to take the Captain’s armband here with the self-confessed ‘average’ player rounding up the troops for an Oireachtas team.

The Old Wesley tighthead prop usually leads the lineout for challenge matches against the likes of Scottish Parliament or Westminster rugger buggers, or Bar Society Senior Counsel sluggers.

There’s never a shortage of players offering their services and of course the craic afterwards is supposed to be pretty spiffingly good too.

There used to be the odd charity soccer match between journalists and politicians organised by former Irish Examiner hack, Juno McEnro.

But they are no more as McEnro has since disappeared to the ranks of Government Special Advisers and is a rare sighting on the gallery among his old comrades these days.

Every TD from outside the Pale always likes to play the ‘what you can do for your county’ card around All Ireland championship time, but it’s rare you’ll see them actually pulling on a GAA jersey for a game in real life.

And as for golf, well, after Golfgate, it’s best not to mention the war on that one around the corridors of Leinster House.

This antipathy towards anything non-rugby has even spread to the local pubs around Leinster House these days.

It took a good trek around the pubs of Dublin 2 last weekend before you could find a watering hole showing the cracking All Ireland hurling semi-final between Kilkenny and Clare.

No, instead, most pub staff looked at you like you’d two heads when you asked, that’s because all the screens were already showing our goys in the U20s Rugby World Cup semi-final vs South Africa - the won by the way.

And there was what one self-professed ‘culchie’ TD described as ‘discrimination’ the week before when he wandered into a city centre pub near Merrion Square looking for the Galway vs Mayo football game.

It was the day of the Pride march and his request for a screen to be turned on for a GAA match was met with shock as the staff member apparently told him no by saying, ‘don’t you know it’s Pride dude?’

The one thing that you might be guaranteed to get on in all pubs these days is a good auld scrum at an Oireachtas committee, with publicans swinging open their doors to show the RTE trials live last week.

All of this brings us back to RTE and the supposed ‘shock’ revelations that the top brass in there are fond of rugby too.

They spent €111,000 bringing six people to the last Rugby World Cup in Japan and spent €138,000 on ten year rugby tickets for the Aviva Stadium.

It wasn’t shocking, it’s just not cricket, nor worthy of a penalty, merely par for the course.

Sheep trials for Leo at the Ag Show

Not giving away any secrets, but Leo Varadkar is not his most comfortable mixing the muck with farmers.

But he is Taoiseach of the country and leader of Fine Gael, the party of the Big Farmer, so he has to get down and dirty with the agricultural people of Ireland every now and then.

Normally, the main photo opp is at the National Ploughing Championships every September.

This is a no-brainer for every political leader these days and the wellies are well-worn by any national politician worth his salt.

However, that’s a once-a-year jobby for most politicians, the wellingtons and the duffel coat (or Barbour these days) are put back in the wardrobe for another year.

So it was a surprise to see Leo out and about at another Ag gig last week, this time it was down in Wexford at the Bannon and Rathangan Show.

And it looks like Leo could be coming to an agricultural show or mart near you soon, as he declared it was his “first show this year.”

Watch out, he’s on tour.

Toy Show costumes mothballed from pride of place

A funny one from a politician who was a guest on RTE’s Leaders’ Questions analysis show on RTE One last week.

The walk between the make-up room and studio 3 normally winds you down past a corridor by the RTE Guide where, randomly up against a wall lay the great costumes of Toy Shows past.

They look fabulous, dressed up on mannequins, you had the Willy Wonka suit, the Greatest Showman get-up and the wonderful Lion King edition costume to name but a few.

Well, the Ryan Tubridy scandal is really cutting deep down in Montrose because the costumes, which have been there for years, have been moved on.

The politician quizzed the runner who was guiding him through the corridors and he was told, “Oh, the Late, Late stuff, that’s all been locked away in the basement for now,” he joked.

Quote of the Week

“I don't know if any of you have been cancelled before, but let me tell you, you don't want to be there,” an exasperated Ryan Tubridy tells TDs what it’s been like for him at the centre of the RTE secret payments storm.