Classic Rugby Quotes I

“Every time I went to tackle him, Horrocks went one way, Taylor went the other, and all I got was the bloody hyphen.” – Nick England on trying to stop Phil Horrocks-Taylor

“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.” – Gareth Davies (1989)

“The main difference between playing League and Union is that now I get my hangovers on Monday instead of Sunday.” – Tom David

“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.” – J. W. Robinson

“To play rugby you need three things: a good pass, a good tackle and a good excuse.” – Anon

On his successors in the Oxford University backs: “I’ve seen better centres in a box of Black Magic.” – JoeMcPartlin

After John Jeffrey had ‘dropped and badly damaged’ the Calcutta Cup: “It will now have to be called the Calcutta Shield.” – Bob Munro (1988)

“I think you enjoy the game more if you don’t know the rules. Anyway, you’re on the same wavelength as the referees.” – Jonathan Davies, A Question of Sport BBC TV (1995)

On taking over as Batley chairman: “Not many people in Batley speak Latin, so the first thing we did was change the motto.” – Stephen Ball (1989)

“The advantage law is the best law in rugby, because it lets you ignore all the others for the good of the game.” – Derek Robinson

“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.” – Dick Jeeps (1976)

“Remember that rugby is a team game; all 14 of you make sure you pass the ball to Jonah.” – Fax to the All Blacks before the 1995 World Cup semi-final.

“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.” – Former England prop Paul Rendall on his front row colleague.

“You’ve got to get your first tackle in early, even if it’s late.” – Welsh hardman Ray Gravell explains his rugby philosophy.

“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.” – Former England scrum-half Nigel Melville who spent most of the 1980s injured.

“We’re going to tear those boys apart.” – Message pinned up on the changing room wall by England skipper Will Carling before his team ran out to face the All Blacks in the 1995 World Cup semi-final in Cape Town. It took at least 70 seconds for New Zealand to score their first try as they demolished England 45-29.

“Don’t ask me about emotions in the Welsh dressing room. I’m someone who cries when he watches ‘Little House on the Prairie’” – Former Welsh second row Bob Norster remembers that special Dragons’ atmosphere.

“There’s no doubt about it, he’s a big bastard” – Gavin Hastings, master of the bleedin’ obvious, on Jonah Lomu.

“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.” – Former RFU supremo Dudley Wood on Anglo-Welsh relations.

“If you can’t take a punch, you should play table tennis.” – Former French skipper and coach Pierre Berbizier illustrates his nation’s attitude to on-pitch violence.

“A player of ours has been proven guilty of biting. That’s a scar that will never heal.” – Bath coach Andy Robinson after his prop Kevin Yates was suspended for taking a chunk out of an opposing flanker’s ear.

“Rugby is a beastly game played by gentlemen; soccer is a gentleman’s game played by beasts; football is a beastly game played by beasts.” – Henry Blaha

“Rugby is a good occasion for keeping thirty bullies far from the centre of the city.” – Oscar Wilde

“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.” – Victor Cahn

“The French are predictably unpredictable.” – Andrew Mehrtens after an All-Blacks surprise loss to the French in the 1999 Rugby World Cup

“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.'” – Johan le Roux after biting Sean Fitzpatrick’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.” – Jim Glennon (1991)

“I prefer rugby to soccer. I enjoy the violence in rugby, except when they start biting each other’s ears off.” – Elizabeth Taylor (1972)

“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.” – Paul Randall (1994)

“If the game is run properly as a professional game, you do not need 57 old farts running rugby.” – Will Carling (1995)

“I’m still an amateur, of course, but I became rugby’s first millionaire five years ago.” – David Campese (1991)

“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.” – Brian Moore on England’s new rubber training suit (1995)

“Everybody thinks we should have moustaches and hairy arses, but in fact you could put us all on the cover of Vogue.” – Helen Kirk on female rugby teams  (1987)

“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.” – P. G. Wodehouse Very Good, Jeeves (1930)

“The lads say my bum is the equivalent of one ‘Erica’.” – Bill Beaumont

“The only trophy we won this day, was the blood and sweat we left on the pitch…. and it was enough” – Anon