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That is the painful lesson Tidjane Thiam is learning as he waits to see whether deal-making in the corridors of power and popular pressure from the street can rescue his bid to become president of Ivory Coast.

There was once a time when Irish-Americans were prominent at the top of US politics, with figures such as Senator Teddy Kennedy and House of Representatives Speaker Tip O'Neill promoting Irish interests in the corridors of power.

That meeting between Pritchard and Streeting was the natural conclusion of changes which had been rumbling on in the corridors of power for some time.

Those results were, of course, bookended by a couple of thumping wins over Japan, but there is no escaping the sense that English rugby needs a lift, the ongoing tumult in its corridors of power having served only to darken the mood lately.

The former president, who died Sunday at the age of 100, prompting a tsunami of tributes from around the world, could sometimes seem awkwardly out of place in the corridors of power.