The 8 worst Rugby World Cup kits ever...

It was the summer of 1995 and Canadian rugby legend Al Charron had a problem. The Canadian management had handed their star the task of presenting their new national team jersey to the media. This is a task that most players would relish, but for Charron, it was a day that would live in infamy.

"I was shown the jersey, with it's terrible cascading multicoloured leafs about 10 minutes before facing the media at a press conference. I tried my best to sell the jersey to the reporters, but I could hardly disguise my shock and disappointment of what was to be our national team jersey.

"The design of the jerseys was one thing, but the quality was just above that of wet paper towel. Months later, at the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa, I picked up from the base of a scrum in our match against Australia only to see the tackle shred my jersey. The jersey literally was ripped right off me. As the play went on, I obviously had to keep playing and I was running around the field looking like an intruder who had just run on to the pitch!"

The white version was produced but never worn.

Nike really went to town with their design for this one. The random ‘swoosh’, ‘swash’ or ‘swipe’ of red that dribbled over England’s kit looked dated the moment it was unveiled. Ignoring the beauty of symmetry, England paraded around in a kit that made it look like the team had stood behind a fence that was being decorated and got accidently painted on. France had the same kit in blue, but the English kit wins for the sheer sharpness of the contrast in red and white.

Not the African countries finest World Cup kit. A lot of colour just all over the place. Unfortunately cemented in history as they wore this during their record defeat, 142–0 against hosts Australia.

Irn-Bru may be a proud Scottish export, but there is no need to use it as design inspiration for your national shirt. If the main shirt colour wasn’t offensive enough, Scotland added lots of hoops on the sleeves for added giggles.

For reasons lost in the mist of time, the 1991 World Cup saw the referees kitted out in a design seemingly inspired by an out of tune television picture (yes, youngsters, TV wasn’t always digital). The only advantage was perhaps it helped distract from any questionable decisions as everyone was too busy trying to retune their TV to notice any errors.

Green and red is a tough combination to pull off with style. Wales didn’t get in right in 1987 and they got it wrong again in 1995. In fact, the shirt was more potent that than the Welsh backline was in that World Cup. At least, unlike recent Welsh change kits, it was actually based on national colours.

With Romania’s flag consisting of the primary colours of red, yellow and blue, it’s not surprising they’ve had their share of garish kits over the years. But for sheer awfulness step forward the 2011 jersey.

Like Romania, Spain overdo the use of primary colours to end up with a child like design. The least said the better.