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"Rugby is a good occasion for keeping thirty bullies far from the center of the city." "In our country, true teams rarely exist . . . social barriers and personal ambitions have reduced athletes to dissolute cliques or individuals thrown together for mutual profit . . . Yet these rugby players. with their muddied, cracked bodies, are struggling to hold onto a sense of humanity that we in America have lost and are unlikely to regain. The game may only be to move a ball forward on a dirt field, but the task can be accomplished with an unshackled joy and its memories will be a permanent delight. The women and men who play on that rugby field are more alive than too many of us will ever be. The foolish emptiness we think we perceive in their existence is only our own." After an All-Blacks surprise loss to the French in the 1999 Rugby World Cup: "The French are predictably unpredictable." After biting Sean Fitzpatrick's ear: "For an 18-month suspension, I feel I probably should have torn it off. Then at least I could say, 'Look, I've returned to South Africa with the guy's ear.'" "I may not have been very tall or very athletic, but the one thing I did have was the most effective backside in world rugby." "I prefer rugby to soccer. I enjoy the violence in rugby, except when they start biting each other's ears off." "I think Brian Moore's gnashers are the kind you get from a DIY shop and hammer in yourself. He is the only player we have who looks like a French forward." "If the game is run properly as a professional game, you do not need 57 old farts running rugby." "I'm still an amateur, of course, but I became rugby's first millionaire five years ago." "On England's new rubber training suit-As you run around Battersea Park in them, looking like a cross between a member of the SAS and Blake's Seven, there is always the lingering fear of arrest." "On female rugby teams - Everybody thinks we should have moustaches and hairy arses, but in fact you could put us all on the cover of Vogue." "Every time I went to tackle him, Horrocks went one way, Taylor went the other, and all I got was the bloody hyphen." "Rugby football is a game I can't claim absolutely to understand in all its niceties, if you know what I mean. I can follow the broad, general principles, of course. I mean to say, I know that the main scheme is to work the ball down the field somehow and deposit it over the line at the other end and that, in order to squalch this programme, each side is allowed to put in a certain amount of assault and battery and do things to its fellow man which, if done elsewhere, would result in 14 days without the option, coupled with some strong remarks from the Bench." "The lads say my bum is the equivalent of one 'Erica'." "The only trophy we won this day, was the blood and sweat we left on the pitch.... and it was enough" "Whoso would be a man, must be a non-conformist, and preferably play in the pack." "A bomb under the West car park at Twickenham on an international day would end fascism in England for a generation." "A major rugby tour by the British Isles to New Zealand is a cross between a medieval crusade and a prep school outing." "I don't know about us not having a Plan B when things went wrong, we looked like we didn't have a Plan A." "Don't ask me about emotions in the Welsh dressing room. I'm someone who cries when he watches Little House on the Prairie." "England's coach Jack Powell, an immensely successful businessman, has the acerbic wit of Dorothy Parker and, according to most New Zealanders, a similar knowledge of rugby." Following Scotland's accusations of French foul play: "If you can't take a punch, you should play table tennis." "Most Misleading Campaign of 1991: England's rugby World Cup squad, who promoted a scheme called 'Run with the Ball'. Not, unfortunately, among themselves." On England's new look against Australia: "This looks a good team on paper, let's see how it looks on grass." On his son Huw's choice to play for England: "I knew he would never play for Wales ... he's tone deaf." On playing for Wales at Lansdowne Road, Dublin: "I didn't know what was going on at the start in the swirling wind. The flags were all pointing in different directions and I thought the Irish had starched them just to fool us." On Wales losing 28-9 against Australia: "No leadership, no ideas. Not even enough imagination to thump someone in the line-up when the ref wasn't looking." Pre-game pep talk before facing England: "Look what these bastards have done to Wales. They've taken our coal, our water, our steel. They buy our houses and they only live in them for a fortnight every 12 months. What have they given us? Absolutely nothing. We've been exploited, raped, controlled and punished by the English - and that's who you are playing this afternoon." "Rugby is not like tea, which is good only in England, with English water and English milk. On the contrary, rugby would be better, frankly, if it were made in a Twickenham pot and warmed up in a Pyrenean cauldron." "The French selectors never do anything by halves; for the first international of the season against Ireland they dropped half the three-quarter line." "The job of Welsh coach is like a minor part in a Quentin Tarantino film: you stagger on, you hallucinate, nobody seems to understand a word you say, you throw up, you get shot. Poor old Kevin Bowring has come up through the coaching structure so he knows what it takes ... 15 more players than Wales have at present." "The only hope for the England rugby union team is to play it all for laughs. It would pack them in if the public address system at Twickenham was turned up full blast to record the laughs at every inept bit of passing, kicking or tackling. The nation would be in fits ... and on telly the BBC would not need a commentator but just a tape of that Laughing Policeman, turning it loud at the most hilarious bits." "The relationship between the Welsh and the English is based on trust and understanding. They don't trust us and we don't understand them." "Tony Ward is the most important rugby player in Ireland. His legs are far more important to his country than even those of Marlene Dietrich were to the film industry. A little hairier, maybe, but a pair of absolute winners." "We've lost seven of our last eight matches. Only team that we've beaten was Western Samoa. Good job we didn't play the whole of Samoa." Before the New Zealand v England World Cup semi-final: "Remember that rugby is a team game; all 14 of you make sure you pass the ball to Jonah." "Me? As England's answer to Jonah Lomu? Joanna Lumley, more likely." On Jonah Lomu: "I've seen a lot people like him, but they weren't playing on the wing." On Jonah Lomu: "The Brent Spar with attitude. A figure who inspires hero worship among even those who think a fly-half is a glass of beer consumed when 'er indoors is looking the other way." On Jonah Lomu: "There's no doubt about it, he's a big bastard." On Lomu finally turning down offers from League teams: "Jonah Lomu is staying in New Zealand, ending an is-he-or-isn't-he saga which rivalled the trial of OJ. Simpson for unnecessarily protracted tedium." "Anyone who doesn't watch rugby league is not a real person. He's a cow's hoof, an ethnic or comes from Melbourne." "Anyone who's seen the Wigan [League] players stripped has been faced with the raw truth of the matter... No time for male modelling, and even Princess Di would think twice about getting too close to that lot." Gareth Edwards: "The sooner that little so-and-so goes to rugby league, the better it will be for us." "I'm 49, I've had a brain haemorrhage and a triple bypass and I could still go out and play a reasonable game of rugby union. But I wouldn't last 30 seconds in rugby league." "League is much, much more physical than Union, and that's before anyone starts breaking the rules." On the biggest change after returning to the Union code: "It's the first time I've been cold for seven years. I was never cold playing rugby league." Summing up during the "Dolphin hooks penis round man's leg" indecent sexual act court case: "Men do not greet one another like this ... except perhaps at rugby club dinners." "The main difference between playing League and Union is that now I get my hangovers on Monday instead of Sunday." "To play rugby league, you need three things: a good pass, a good tackle and a good excuse." After a succession of career-threatening injuries: "I played ten injury-free years between the ages of 12 and 22. Then, suddenly, it seemed like I was allergic to the twentieth century." "In my time, I've had my knee out, broken my collarbone, had my nose smashed, a rib broken, lost a few teeth, and ricked my back; but as soon as I get a bit of bad luck I'm going to quit the game." "New Zealand rugby is a colourful game since you get all black ... and blue." "A forward's usefulness to his side varies as to the square of his distance from the ball." "Colin Meads is the kind of player you expect to see emerging from a ruck with the remains of a jockstrap between his teeth." "Forwards are the gnarled and scarred creatures who have a propensity for running into and bleeding all over each other." "I don't know why prop forwards play rugby." "In 1823, William Webb Ellis first picked up the ball in his arms and ran with it. And for the next 156 years forwards have been trying to work out why." On the Munster pack: "Mothers keep their photo on the mantelpiece to stop the kids going too near the fire." "The Holy Writ of Gloucester Rugby Club demands: first, that the forwards shall win the ball; second, that the forwards shall keep the ball; and third, the backs shall buy the beer." "The one-handed palmer can always reach higher, they say. They may be right, but the result is that nearly every line-out is like a tropical island - all waving palms." "Wade Dooley: With a handle like that he sounds more like a western sheriff than the Lancashire bobby that he is." After JPR Williams was involved in a road traffic accident: "Bloody typical, isn't it? The car's a write-off. The tanker's a write-off. But JPR comes out of it all in one piece." "If I had been a winger, I might have been daydreaming and thinking about how to keep my kit clean for next week." Martin Offiah: "Your hands can't catch what your eyes can't see." On his successors in the Oxford University backs: "I've seen better centres in a box of Black Magic." Peter Sterling: "If Walt Disney had seen this little man's antics, there'd have been no Mickey Mouse." "Rory Underwood: The gentleman athlete and flightmeister." "Rugby backs can be identified because they generally have clean jerseys and identifiable partings in their hair... come the revolution the backs will be the first to be lined up against the wall and shot for living parasitically off the work of others." "Rugby players are either piano shifters or piano movers. Fortunately, I am one of those who can play a tune." Simon Geoghegan: "The winger resembles Mother Brown, running with a high knee-lift and sometimes not progressing far from the spot where he started." After John Jeffrey had 'dropped and badly damaged' the Calcutta Cup: "It will now have to be called the Calcutta Shield." "I think you enjoy the game more if you don't know the rules. Anyway, you're on the same wavelength as the referees." "In south west Lancashire, babes don't toddle, they side-step. Queuing women talk of 'nipping round the blindside'. Rugby league provides our cultural adrenalin. It's a physical manifestation of our rules of life, comradeship, honest endeavour, and a staunch, often ponderous allegiance to fair play." On playing his last game of rugby for Bath: "I thought I would have a quiet pint ... and about 17 noisy ones." On taking over as Batley chairman: "Not many people in Batley speak Latin, so the first thing we did was change the motto." "Playing rugby at school I once fell on a loose ball and, through ignorance and fear, held on despite a fierce pummelling. After that it took me months to convince my team-mates I was a coward." "Ray Gravell Eats Soft Centres." "Rugby is a game for the mentally deficient... That is why it was invented by the British. Who else but an Englishman could invent an oval ball?" "Rugby is played by men with odd shaped balls." "The advantage law is the best law in rugby, because it lets you ignore all the others for the good of the game." "The first half is invariably much longer than the second. This is partly because of the late kick-off but is also caused by the unfitness of the referee." "There is far too much talk about good ball and bad ball. In my opinion, good ball is when you have possession and bad ball is when the opposition have it." To Princess Anne's son Peter Phillips, Gordonstoun School's rugby captain, for his pre-match coin-toss preference: "Grandmother or tails, sir?" "You've got to get your first tackle in early, even if it's late." "The women sit, getting colder and colder, on a seat getting harder and harder, watching oafs, getting muddier and muddier." "Rugby may have many problems, but the gravest is undoubtedly that of the persistence of summer." "A game played by fewer than fifteen a side, at least half of whom should be totally unfit." "The whole point of rugby is that it is, first and foremost, a state of mind, a spirit." "Rugby League is war without the frills." "Beer and Rugby are more or less synonymous." "The pub is as much a part of rugby as is the playing field." "Subdue and penetrate." "You can go to the end of time, the last World Cup in the history of mankind, and the All-Blacks will be favourites for it." "I wanted a play that would paint the full face of sensualtiy, rebellion and revivalism. In South Wales these three phenomena have played second fiddle only to the Rugby Union which is a distillation of all three." "What happens when a game of football is proposed at Christmas among a party of your men assembled from different schools? Alas! ... The Eton man is enamoured of his own rules, and turns up his nose at Rugby as not sufficiently aristocratic, while the Rugbeian retorts that 'bullying' and 'sneaking' are not to his taste, and he is not afraid of his shins, or of a 'maul' or 'scrimmage'. On hearing this the Harrovian pricks up his ears, and though he might previously have sided with Rugby, the insinuation against the courage of those who do not allow 'shinning' arouses his ire, and causes him to refuse to lay with one who has offered it. Thus it is found impossible to get up a game." "The tactical difference between Association Football and Rugby with its varieties seems to be that in the former, the ball is the missile, in the latter, men are the missles." | ||
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