My Life in Rugby

This is where you will find all of The Rugby Paper’s My Life in Rugby news, interviews, opinion and other content.

My Life in Rugby: Chris Malone – former Bath, London Irish and Quins fly-half

11 April 2017 0 comments

I came to England in 2001 and had 10 great years, experiencing time at five different clubs, all of which were brilliant in their own […]

My Life in Rugby: Jon Phillips – former Northampton and Bedford lock

4 April 2017 0 comments

Times have changed a bit since I played (and scored) in Saints’ first-ever Premiership match back in August 1997. There were around 6,000 in the […]

My Life in Rugby: Anthony Allen – former England and Leicester centre

14 March 2017 0 comments

With hindsight, getting capped by England at 20, just over a year after leaving school, was way too soon. But you never know when such […]

My Life in Rugby: Lee Blackett – former Rotherham and Leeds centre

7 March 2017 0 comments

I’d love to say that the biggest crowd in Rotherham‘s history (6,894) turned out specifically to see my club debut against Bath in January 2004, […]

My Life in Rugby: Nikki Walker – former Ospreys and Worcester wing

28 February 2017 0 comments

Winning the Celtic League in my first season at Ospreys with a victory at the Border Reivers was a bitter-sweet experience for me. It was […]

My Life in Rugby: Nick Baxter – former Worcester and England Sevens wing

21 February 2017 0 comments

To be the first player to score 100 National League tries and everything else that came my way was beyond any expectations when I first […]

My Life in Rugby: Scott Morgan – former Wales forward

14 February 2017 0 comments

Each and every time I pulled on a club jersey was special to me irrespective of who I played for, but scoring on my Cardiff […]

My Life in Rugby: Luke Fielden – former Bedford and Newcastle wing

7 February 2017 0 comments

Through good times and bad, rugby has been a part of my life and that will continue even though I’ve had to retire from the […]

My Life in Rugby: Peter Winterbottom – former Lions, England & Quins flanker

31 January 2017 0 comments

Rugby was in my blood from an early age. Chris Rea lodged with us for a bit after he’d moved down to Leeds from Scotland […]

My Life in Rugby: Gareth Llewellyn – former Wales, Neath, Bristol and Quins lock

24 January 2017 0 comments

I think rugby changed more during the 20 years of my career than it did in the previous 50 with the introduction of the World […]

My Life in Rugby: Ralph Keyes – former Munster and Ireland fly-half

17 January 2017 0 comments

To be top points scorer at the 1991 World Cup (with 68) is something I’m immensely proud of to this day, particularly as our first […]

My Life in Rugby: Tim Payne – former Wasps, England and Lions prop

10 January 2017 0 comments

After brief spells at Bristol and then Cardiff I was very close to jacking rugby in and pursuing a career in the Army. But a […]

My Life in Rugby: Dave Baldwin – former Sale lock

27 December 2016 0 comments

Despite being a proud Yorkshireman most of my playing days were spent on the other side of the Pennines, with Sale. John Bentley cajoled me […]

My Life in Rugby: Errie Claassens – former Rotherham and Worcester wuing

20 December 2016 0 comments

Back home in South Africa it was rugby, rugby, rugby. Every break time or after school you’d be playing full contact – even from the […]

My Life in Rugby: Nick Wood – former Gloucester prop

13 December 2016 0 comments

I arrived at Gloucester as a boy and left 15 years later as a man. The club and the characters and people within it shaped […]

My Life in Rugby: Daniel Browne – former Northampton, Bath and London Welsh lock

6 December 2016 0 comments

Born and raised in New Zealand, I grew up marvelling at the skills of Zinzan Brooke. He had it all. Wayne Shelford, my coach at […]

My Life in Rugby: Erik Lund – former Rotherham, Leeds and Biarritz lock

29 November 2016 0 comments

Fighting Mamuka Gorgodze on my debut may not have seemed like the best career move I could have made but it earned me the respect […]

My Life in Rugby: Jason White – former Scotland flanker

22 November 2016 0 comments

Kicking off with a Calcutta Cup win against England in 2009 was a fantastic way to start my international career and I feel blessed to […]

My Life in Rugby: Nic Rouse – former London Irish, Sale and Nottingham lock

8 November 2016 0 comments

I was 27 by the time I made my Premiership debut, in a one-off game on loan for injury-hit London Irish against Leicester, but everything […]

My Life in Rugby: Lee Byrne – former Lions and Wales full-back

1 November 2016 0 comments

It would have been nice to reach 50 caps for Wales, especially as I felt I was playing some good rugby for Clermont, one of […]

My Life in Rugby: Kenny Milne – former Scotland & Heriot’s hooker

25 October 2016 0 comments

It is all very well playing international rugby, and representing the Lions in 1993 was a great personal honour, but when you are playing week […]

My Life in Rugby: Barry Everitt – former London Irish & Northampton fly-half

18 October 2016 0 comments

It was the norm to have a hurling stick in your hand, not a rugby ball, where I grew up in Ireland and I didn’t […]

My Life in Rugby: Dave Scully – former England Sevens scrum-half

11 October 2016 0 comments

Winning the Sevens World Cup in 1993 was the highlight of my career and my try-saving tackle on Fiji‘s Mesake Rasari in the semi-final was […]

My Life in Rugby: Roy Winters – former Bedford, Harlequins & Bristol back rower

4 October 2016 0 comments

It was thanks to my two left feet that I packed in football and tried my hand at rugby instead. Being bigger than most of […]

My Life in Rugby: Jon Clarke – former Leeds, Worcester and Northampton centre

20 September 2016 0 comments

On reflection, being told there was no money left in the kitty at Bristol and that I was free to move on was a blessing […]

My Life in Rugby: Paul Hull – former England and Bristol full-back

13 September 2016 0 comments

Throughout any playing career you have ups and downs and when I played for Bristol that was most definitely the case. I played 289 first […]

My Life in Rugby: Steve Smith – former Sale and England scrum-half

6 September 2016 0 comments

I came from a council house family in Stockport and my dad was football mad. In fact, I’d never seen a rugby ball until I […]

My Life in Rugby: Sam Smith – former Harlequins and Worcester wing

30 August 2016 0 comments

By rights I should have been a Wasp. My dad played for the club and I had a few training sessions with them. But I […]

My Life in Rugby: Tony Buckley – former Munster, Sale and Ireland prop

23 August 2016 0 comments

Up to the age of 16 my shoe size correlated with my age, meaning I had to have rugby boots specially made for me in […]

My Life in Rugby: Craig White – former Lions performance coach

16 August 2016 0 comments

The three years I spent at Wasps, between 2002 and 2005, was an incredible period in my career. Warren Gatland and I had already built […]

My Life in Rugby: Martin Cooper – former Moseley and England fly-half

9 August 2016 0 comments

If anyone had told me when I was first starting out at Wolverhampton RFC that I’d get 11 caps for England, I’d have told them […]

My Life in Rugby: Ben Woods – former Leicester, Newcastle and England Saxons flanker

2 August 2016 0 comments

I grew up in south Yorkshire dreaming of becoming a footballer so I’d never have guessed that the only penalty shootout I’d experience would be […]

My life in Rugby: Brett Sturgess – former Exeter prop

12 July 2016 0 comments

I came from a football family and didn’t play rugby until about 15 when I became too big to play centre half. After two sessions […]

My Life in Rugby: Miles Benjamin – former Worcester, Leicester and England Saxons wing

5 July 2016 0 comments

It’s only when you look to explore different avenues in life that you get to fully appreciate how special it was to play rugby for […]

My Life in Rugby: Hal Luscombe – Wales, NG Dragons, Harlequins and harlequins centre/wing

28 June 2016 0 comments

Coming from South Africa I didn’t fully appreciated just how big a rivalry Wales versus England was, or the magnitude of the Six Nations and […]

My Life in Rugby: Andrew Small – former RFU elite panel referee

14 June 2016 0 comments

Refereeing the Army-Navy game in front of a full house at Twickenham, with my wife and kids in the crowd, was a brilliant way to […]

My Life in Rugby: Tom Guest – former Harlequins and London Irish back-rower

7 June 2016 0 comments

I don’t think any player is truly happy with what they have done when your days have been cut short through injury, but I’m proud […]

My Life in Rugby: Bleddyn Jones- former Leicester fly-half

31 May 2016 0 comments

I was named after Bleddyn Williams, the Prince of Welsh centres when I was born in 1948, in a mining village called Brynamman, near Swansea. […]

My Life in Rugby: Mark Foster – former Gloucester, Exeter Chiefs and Jersey back

24 May 2016 0 comments

To be involved in Exeter‘s first-ever Premiership game was an unbelievable experience – and to score against my former club Gloucester in front of the […]

My Life in Rugby: Redford Pennycook – former Bristol, Newcastle and Ealing flanker

17 May 2016 0 comments

My old mate at Bristol, James Merriman, said that life as a professional player was like being on an emotional roller-coaster: you just try and […]

My Life in Rugby: Derek Wyatt – former England, Bedford, Bath and Oxford University winger

10 May 2016 0 comments

The England selectors in my day were out of touch, God bless them, and coaches were even worse. I played under John Burgess who was […]

My Life in Rugby: Aadel Kardooni- former Wasps, Leicester and England ‘A’ scrum-half

3 May 2016 0 comments

I don’t think I had ever seen, let alone held, a rugby ball until I came over to the UK from Tehran to board at […]

My Life in Rugby: Jason Strange- former Ebbw Vale Newport, Bristol and Leeds fly-half

26 April 2016 0 comments

I look back fondly on my time at each club I played for but my second spell at Ebbw Vale, and four seasons at Bristol, […]

My Life in Rugby: David Officer – former Scotland A, harlequins, Edinburgh and Worcester centre

19 April 2016 0 comments

Randall Philip (Edin-burgh University) and Graham Hogg (Currie) were major influences in my early rugby career, but it was while playing under Graham, for Scotland […]

My Life in rugby: Chris Gray – former Edinburgh Academicals, Nottingham and Scotland lock

12 April 2016 0 comments

I can’t put a price on the amount of fun and entertainment I had during my career. Whether it was playing for Edinburgh Accies 5ths […]

My Life in Rugby: Steve Gustard – former Gosforth winger

22 March 2016 0 comments

When I joined Gosforth from Blaydon in 1971, there weren’t any great stars in the squad. Yes, future England scrum-half Mal Young was there, and […]

My life in Rugby: Steve Boyle – former England, Lions, Gloucester and Moseley lock

15 March 2016 0 comments

The day I was told I’d been selected for the 1983 Lions was probably the happiest and saddest of my life. I heard on the […]

My Life in Rugby: Niall Woods – former Ireland, Leinster, London Irish and Harlequins winger

8 March 2016 0 comments

When the game turned professional I was playing for Blackrock College and Leinster and had a handful of Ireland caps. The IRFU offered me a […]

My Life in rugby: Peter Clegg – Otley Director of Rugby

1 March 2016 0 comments

For me, defeats stick in the memory more than the wins, and few hurt quite as hard as Otley‘s last-gasp loss to Harlequins in 2005 […]

My Life in Rugby: Mike Bulpitt – former Blackheath and England back

23 February 2016 0 comments

Easter tours to Wales with the Barbarians were absolutely amazing experiences and the games came thick and fast. Playing four games in four days didn’t […]

My Life in Rugby

Recent Posts

Search