Autumn Internationals this weekend

[MyUserName]

Never mind that; the Pacific Island guys are mostly complete gentlemen, some of the nicest guys you could be lucky enough to meet.

Fair enough but there are plenty of international rugby players who are not. It must be a bouncer's nightmare!!

Spare some thought for those of us who've had to try and stop them when they're running at 11 second 100 metre pace.

Anyone who does anything other than just run for it when faced with that has my respect.

[Mich the Tester]

Fair enough but there are plenty of international rugby players who are not. It must be a bouncer's nightmare!!



Anyone who does anything other than just run for it when faced with that has my respect.

It's usually the little gobby ones like wingers and half backs that start trouble and then the forwards have to rescue them, with all the subtletly, finesse and elegance you can expect from large hairy blokes who've spent all afternoon with their noses in a prop's farts. Mind you, wingers are often about 6'3'' and 16 1/2 stone nowadays. Why then do they still have to be such gobtulipes?

[MyUserName]

It's usually the little gobby ones like wingers and half backs that start trouble...

Funnily enough the only professional rubgy player I know* is a winger/scrum half and the last time I saw him was about 14 years ago and he was brawling with people in the doorway of a pub I was trying to leave in Ammanford.

*by that I mean we were in the same form at school and might say hello if we saw each other.

[Mich the Tester]

Funnily enough the only professional rubgy player I know* is a winger/scrum half and the last time I saw him was about 14 years ago and he was brawling with people in the doorway of a pub I was trying to leave in Ammanford.

*by that I mean we were in the same form at school and might say hello if we saw each other.

I thought I might entertain you with a little overview of the few really well known players I got to play against, all of them retired now as they're about my age too. Most of them in 7s or 10s games as I was better at that than 15s. All of them served to remind me why I didn't get to the top no matter how hard I tried;

Dale Macintosh, Pontypridd. A brute to stop and he tackled like a chieftain tank. He played a lot of 7s and 10s for invitation sides; very often I think teams exaggerate the size of their players in the match programme for the sake of some psychological thing. But this guy's listed at 6'4'' and 17 stone; I'm fooking sure he's bigger than that. Half way through a game of 10s the sun set behind him at a throw in and left me clutching at the ball in the dark. I sort of tackled him a couple of times. He ran at me, I flung my body in front of him somewhat suicidally, bounced off him and he fell over on top of me.

Andy Nicol, Scotland fly half. Brilliant timing and vision, but I dummied him! That's my only claim to fame. Terribly sporting of him to let me go, just a shame he had the aforementioned Dale Macintosh 3 yards behind him otherwise I'd have scored instead of being flatpacked like an IKEA table. I think he might have let me go deliberately. Bastard.

Marika Vunibaka. A tall Fijian winger. I saw him catch the ball. Then I saw him place it on the ground behind our try line. What happened in the 50 yards between the two events is mysterious time vortex only Doctor Who would understand.

Mike Umaga, brother of Tana and possibly even harder. Saw him, got down low to make the hit. Head hurt and **** knows what happened.

Brian Redpath. Small man, about 12 stone; you wouldn't expect much from him. Wrapped him up after his lot fluffed a line out. Attemted to turn him around to face my side. He would not be moved; his feet seemed to be anchored to the ground and his forwards ripped the ball. Amazing physical strength for such a small guy.

Trevor Leota. Cannot be tackled as each leg is wider than two people's bodies. Sort of falls over voluntarily when he's tired, which was luckily after about 10 yards. Amazing ball skills, especially for a front row forward. Delightful man.

Tim Rodber. Knees like sledgehammers hitting my ribs. Ouch.


To be fair though, all of them are very nice guys indeed.

[SupremeSpod]

I thought I might entertain you with a little overview of the few really well known players I got to play against, all of them retired now as they're about my age too. Most of them in 7s or 10s games as I was better at that than 15s. All of them served to remind me why I didn't get to the top no matter how hard I tried;

Dale Macintosh, Pontypridd. A brute to stop and he tackled like a chieftain tank. He played a lot of 7s and 10s for invitation sides; very often I think teams exaggerate the size of their players in the match programme for the sake of some psychological thing. But this guy's listed at 6'4'' and 17 stone; I'm fooking sure he's bigger than that. Half way through a game of 10s the sun set behind him at a throw in and left me clutching at the ball in the dark. I sort of tackled him a couple of times. He ran at me, I flung my body in front of him somewhat suicidally, bounced off him and he fell over on top of me.

Andy Nicol, Scotland fly half. Brilliant timing and vision, but I dummied him! That's my only claim to fame. Terribly sporting of him to let me go, just a shame he had the aforementioned Dale Macintosh 3 yards behind him otherwise I'd have scored instead of being flatpacked like an IKEA table. I think he might have let me go deliberately. Bastard.

Marika Vunibaka. A tall Fijian winger. I saw him catch the ball. Then I saw him place it on the ground behind our try line. What happened in the 50 yards between the two events is mysterious time vortex only Doctor Who would understand.

Mike Umaga, brother of Tana and possibly even harder. Saw him, got down low to make the hit. Head hurt and **** knows what happened.

Brian Redpath. Small man, about 12 stone; you wouldn't expect much from him. Wrapped him up after his lot fluffed a line out. Attemted to turn him around to face my side. He would not be moved; his feet seemed to be anchored to the ground and his forwards ripped the ball. Amazing physical strength for such a small guy.

Trevor Leota. Cannot be tackled as each leg is wider than two people's bodies. Sort of falls over voluntarily when he's tired, which was luckily after about 10 yards. Amazing ball skills, especially for a front row forward. Delightful man.

Tim Rodber. Knees like sledgehammers hitting my ribs. Ouch.


To be fair though, all of them are very nice guys indeed.

Ever thought about after-dinner speaking? That was a pleasure to read.

[Mich the Tester]

Ever thought about after-dinner speaking? That was a pleasure to read.

I'm glad you enjoyed it because doing the field research was fooking painful. Still is too.

[MyUserName]

I'm glad you enjoyed it because doing the field research was fooking painful. Still is too.

And people think my hobby is rough?!?!

Thanks for the annecdotes, they were fun to read!

[stek]

Is this League (proper hard men build like Dairylea Triangles), or Union (Fatties)?

[Doggy Styles]

Tim Rodber, I'd forgotten all about him.

Well, you had a go MTT. I packed up rugger in my teens.

[moggy]

Is this League (proper hard men build like Dairylea Triangles), or Union (Fatties)?

Proper Rugby, Union.

Best after dinner speaker I have had the pleasure of listening to was, John Bentley. Very witty man.