A fitting prelude to the Six Nations Grand Slam decider
On Thursday this week (17th March), as part of the Rugby Football Union’s Great War Commemorations, the FRU and the French Rugby Federation – together with the Department for Culture Media and Sport, and the French Commission for the Centenary – organised a ceremony at the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris under the umbrella title A Somme 100 France-England Rugby International Commemoration, as a salute to all rugby union internationals who died in the conflict.
A Rugby Football Union group of about twenty, including the chairman Bill Beaumont and his wife Hilary, representatives of all services Rugby Unions, and of descendant families of three England rugby internationals who perished in WW1, travelled by Eurostar to Paris on the day and then, after the 6.30pm ceremony, attended a reception cocktail party at the residence of the British Ambassador to France Sir Julian King.
This was in advance of the France v England Six Nation rugby international taking place tonight at 8.00pm.
