All posts tagged "My Life in Rugby"
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Seb Jewell – former London Welsh full-back
I fell into professional rugby and then fell in and out of love with it several times along the way. Originally,...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Gary Powell – former Gloucester prop
After countless hours playing Jonah Lomu Rugby on the PlayStation at Llandovery College it was surreal to suddenly find myself sat...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Chris Malone – former Bath, London Irish and Quins fly-half
I came to England in 2001 and had 10 great years, experiencing time at five different clubs, all of which were...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Jon Phillips – former Northampton and Bedford lock
Times have changed a bit since I played (and scored) in Saints’ first-ever Premiership match back in August 1997. There were...
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20 Questions
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Scott Hamilton – former All Blacks and Leicetser wing
The main reason I made the All Blacks team in 2006 was because I was in such a great Crusaders team....
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Anthony Allen – former England and Leicester centre
With hindsight, getting capped by England at 20, just over a year after leaving school, was way too soon. But you...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Lee Blackett – former Rotherham and Leeds centre
I’d love to say that the biggest crowd in Rotherham‘s history (6,894) turned out specifically to see my club debut against...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Nikki Walker – former Ospreys and Worcester wing
Winning the Celtic League in my first season at Ospreys with a victory at the Border Reivers was a bitter-sweet experience...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Nick Baxter – former Worcester and England Sevens wing
To be the first player to score 100 National League tries and everything else that came my way was beyond any...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Scott Morgan – former Wales forward
Each and every time I pulled on a club jersey was special to me irrespective of who I played for, but...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Luke Fielden – former Bedford and Newcastle wing
Through good times and bad, rugby has been a part of my life and that will continue even though I’ve had...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Peter Winterbottom – former Lions, England & Quins flanker
Rugby was in my blood from an early age. Chris Rea lodged with us for a bit after he’d moved down...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Gareth Llewellyn – former Wales, Neath, Bristol and Quins lock
I think rugby changed more during the 20 years of my career than it did in the previous 50 with the...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Ralph Keyes – former Munster and Ireland fly-half
To be top points scorer at the 1991 World Cup (with 68) is something I’m immensely proud of to this day,...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Tim Payne – former Wasps, England and Lions prop
After brief spells at Bristol and then Cardiff I was very close to jacking rugby in and pursuing a career in...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Dave Baldwin – former Sale lock
Despite being a proud Yorkshireman most of my playing days were spent on the other side of the Pennines, with Sale....
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Errie Claassens – former Rotherham and Worcester wuing
Back home in South Africa it was rugby, rugby, rugby. Every break time or after school you’d be playing full contact...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Nick Wood – former Gloucester prop
I arrived at Gloucester as a boy and left 15 years later as a man. The club and the characters and...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Daniel Browne – former Northampton, Bath and London Welsh lock
Born and raised in New Zealand, I grew up marvelling at the skills of Zinzan Brooke. He had it all. Wayne...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Erik Lund – former Rotherham, Leeds and Biarritz lock
Fighting Mamuka Gorgodze on my debut may not have seemed like the best career move I could have made but it...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 8 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Jason White – former Scotland flanker
Kicking off with a Calcutta Cup win against England in 2009 was a fantastic way to start my international career and...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Nic Rouse – former London Irish, Sale and Nottingham lock
I was 27 by the time I made my Premiership debut, in a one-off game on loan for injury-hit London Irish...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Lee Byrne – former Lions and Wales full-back
It would have been nice to reach 50 caps for Wales, especially as I felt I was playing some good rugby...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Kenny Milne – former Scotland & Heriot’s hooker
It is all very well playing international rugby, and representing the Lions in 1993 was a great personal honour, but when...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Barry Everitt – former London Irish & Northampton fly-half
It was the norm to have a hurling stick in your hand, not a rugby ball, where I grew up in...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Dave Scully – former England Sevens scrum-half
Winning the Sevens World Cup in 1993 was the highlight of my career and my try-saving tackle on Fiji‘s Mesake Rasari...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Roy Winters – former Bedford, Harlequins & Bristol back rower
It was thanks to my two left feet that I packed in football and tried my hand at rugby instead. Being...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Jon Clarke – former Leeds, Worcester and Northampton centre
On reflection, being told there was no money left in the kitty at Bristol and that I was free to move...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Paul Hull – former England and Bristol full-back
Throughout any playing career you have ups and downs and when I played for Bristol that was most definitely the case....
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Steve Smith – former Sale and England scrum-half
I came from a council house family in Stockport and my dad was football mad. In fact, I’d never seen a...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Sam Smith – former Harlequins and Worcester wing
By rights I should have been a Wasp. My dad played for the club and I had a few training sessions...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Tony Buckley – former Munster, Sale and Ireland prop
Up to the age of 16 my shoe size correlated with my age, meaning I had to have rugby boots specially...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Craig White – former Lions performance coach
The three years I spent at Wasps, between 2002 and 2005, was an incredible period in my career. Warren Gatland and...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Martin Cooper – former Moseley and England fly-half
If anyone had told me when I was first starting out at Wolverhampton RFC that I’d get 11 caps for England,...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Ben Woods – former Leicester, Newcastle and England Saxons flanker
I grew up in south Yorkshire dreaming of becoming a footballer so I’d never have guessed that the only penalty shootout...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy life in Rugby: Brett Sturgess – former Exeter prop
I came from a football family and didn’t play rugby until about 15 when I became too big to play centre...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Miles Benjamin – former Worcester, Leicester and England Saxons wing
It’s only when you look to explore different avenues in life that you get to fully appreciate how special it was...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Hal Luscombe – Wales, NG Dragons, Harlequins and harlequins centre/wing
Coming from South Africa I didn’t fully appreciated just how big a rivalry Wales versus England was, or the magnitude of...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Andrew Small – former RFU elite panel referee
Refereeing the Army-Navy game in front of a full house at Twickenham, with my wife and kids in the crowd, was...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Tom Guest – former Harlequins and London Irish back-rower
I don’t think any player is truly happy with what they have done when your days have been cut short through...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Bleddyn Jones- former Leicester fly-half
I was named after Bleddyn Williams, the Prince of Welsh centres when I was born in 1948, in a mining village...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Mark Foster – former Gloucester, Exeter Chiefs and Jersey back
To be involved in Exeter’s first-ever Premiership game was an unbelievable experience – and to score against my former club Gloucester...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Redford Pennycook – former Bristol, Newcastle and Ealing flanker
My old mate at Bristol, James Merriman, said that life as a professional player was like being on an emotional roller-coaster:...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Derek Wyatt – former England, Bedford, Bath and Oxford University winger
The England selectors in my day were out of touch, God bless them, and coaches were even worse. I played under...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Aadel Kardooni- former Wasps, Leicester and England ‘A’ scrum-half
I don’t think I had ever seen, let alone held, a rugby ball until I came over to the UK from...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Jason Strange- former Ebbw Vale Newport, Bristol and Leeds fly-half
I look back fondly on my time at each club I played for but my second spell at Ebbw Vale, and...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: David Officer – former Scotland A, harlequins, Edinburgh and Worcester centre
Randall Philip (Edin-burgh University) and Graham Hogg (Currie) were major influences in my early rugby career, but it was while playing...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Steve Gustard – former Gosforth winger
When I joined Gosforth from Blaydon in 1971, there weren’t any great stars in the squad. Yes, future England scrum-half Mal...
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy life in Rugby: Steve Boyle – former England, Lions, Gloucester and Moseley lock
The day I was told I’d been selected for the 1983 Lions was probably the happiest and saddest of my life....
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My Life in Rugby
/ 9 years agoMy Life in Rugby: Niall Woods – former Ireland, Leinster, London Irish and Harlequins winger
When the game turned professional I was playing for Blackrock College and Leinster and had a handful of Ireland caps. The...