you bring back some memories you really do! I was a very late arrival to Rugby only getting into it when I was about 20 if I recall, and that was through working with 3M in London and being 'persuaded' by my then Boss to join in. Apart from my then regarded as substantial size (how times have changed?) I had passing interest in the Sport but little else.
I really wasn't a very good player, as I have noted elsewhere just seemed to have the ability to get in everybody's way more than anything, but at this level albeit with a recognised Club, people of my size and weight and I was a fit 6'1" and at my heaviest 16.5 stone, seemed to be in short supply. Plenty taller than me, but mostly lighter, so second row was about right for my capabilities (or lack of).
The really odd thing and this is checkable was my dramatic increase in size from age 11 as you mention. I was exactly 5' tall at that age, and exactly 6' tall four years later, although the weight didn't come til later. My brother on the other hand was 6'4" at aged 14 and drifted up to 6'6" by aged 19. His weight exactly equated his age in each year until he stopped at 23 years old at roughly 20 stone. Hardly surprising that I always considered myself the 'baby' of the family, expecially when all his mates were well over the 6' mark.
Interestingly none of them played any sort of sport except Golf in later years. But they were all mad Spurs supporters.
But letting a 13 - 0 lead slip by being sloppy and indisciplined... Wales deserve the win but just deserts I suppose. The game lacked consistency. All that specialised training and a team is still not cohesive! Both teams although Wales improved, which might have been too late but for luck. Refereeing????
The first half had me feeling the same to be honest, but you can't deny the second half was riveting. Personally as Wales did most of the attacking in that half I felt they deserved the win, but defence is also part of the game so they both equalled on effort so a Draw was no bad result. Certainly the best of the current sides so far in the Tournament anyway. Let's see what changes are wrought in the next round.
I wish I could say something good about the referee though, not so much about his decisions, but about his LACK of decisions! Twice the same Irish player did a 'lift and dump' which by pure chance didn't cause serious injury. First time a free kick - and not even a warning? No wonder he thought he could get away with it a second time.
One thing I have noted it several players these days and Ireland seem to have more of these than most and these are the "whingeing' players who want to argue points with the referee with arm wavings and pointing (mainly at scrums). In my memory this started with Stringer and is now most notable in Sexton, who get right up my nose with this sort of stuff. The referees have not been good so far - and where are the top ones at the moment? However, they ARE in charge of the match, they DO have wide discretion, and they must be obeyed - or do we want the game to descend into the bullying and harrying of officials such as we see in Football? I certainly don't.
Yup, not very inspiring. Ireland are clearly going to be a tough proposition again if only because of their destructive work in the rucks and mauls. I'm sure they get away with murder, really on the edge of what's permissible. Wales made a sloppy start giving away those early penalties and they were always chasing the game after that. But there was, to my biased eye, enough to inspire hope.
On the basis of most lads being roughly the same size at 11, except the rounder ones, we fell into positions because the sports teacher said 'You do ...'. So I became a hooker. I am actually a bit small and was far too light for the scrum, should have been a winger to run with the ball. Anyway, I stayed a hooker and developed my own technique and year on year was one of the boys who stayed in the team up to sixth form which was the real school team when I got my schnozzle broken. I did not go in for university rugby, far too competitive, but a small local team, told them I was a hooker at school and they just happened to need one.
Now they have a separate training scheme for every possible position, as if props who are supposed to have brawn and no brain need one. My friend's grandson went on a rugby training exchange scheme for fly-halfs as part of his selection for Bergerac's 488th team in the hope he could eventually get a place in the first team. So he went to Romania, Ireland and Portugal and this year I think he goes to England. As a small team player we were aware of spotters out for bigger teams at local games, which in turn might have led up the food chain. The rest was done over a pint after the game. Rugby is going soft!
By the way, an unsporting friend who is an academic lawyer married a rugby playing woman, but she was from the USA where at the time women players - 1970s into 80s - had biceps that made most blokes wince in envy. The USA's women's team did a tour in France and played a friendly in Bergerac against their women in 2014. It was like a bloomin' fashion show with lean, healthy women rather than muscular lasses.
Well Norman, I used to enjoy playing most sports tho' alas I was pretty rubbish at them all except for cricket maybe where, as a non grammar school boy struggled to find any coaching. My brief Union career was usually spent as hooker mainly due to my decent bowling and throwing arm. The scrum was usually amusing when nestled up to the props whose personal hygeine usually left a lot to be desired !
you are dead right about the half-fit specimens. I certainly was, but then again we all had full-time jobs, so often we had 'training' on a couple of evenings week, which was a joke, but all in good fun, and then into the clubhouse with bored and usually cold girlfriends who used to watch us 'adults' do the Muffin Man.
One of the reasons I stopped playing was a) being unfit meant you got hurt in tackles, and b) getting hurt used to piss me off so I admit to being prone to having a lash out at the offending tackler. In turn he would have a pop at me and before you knew it it the word 'maul' took on a whole new meaning!
There was more pushing and shoving than actual bodily harm - so that much hasn't changed in the game at all levels as far as I can see.
Daft when you think about it isn't it? At least a couple of girlfriends of mine thought so, and decamped.
I don't think any of us really thought about it seriously though, just a good excuse (as if we needed one) to have a few drinks with like-minded nutters. Of course there were always one or two who DID take it all seriously, and they ended up in the first team - I never did.
The game is still the same as that in the local game Norman at least , around these parts it is. The quality of the rugby is pretty poor but some of the punch-ups are brilliant !
The Will Carling comments in the mid '90s when he called the RFU " a bunch of old farts" seemed to trigger the call for the game to become 'Professional'. RU in England changed with the Edict of Twickers and the game soon became unrecognisable from the half-fit specimens from the previous 'Amateur' game.
I think they have the youth programme sorted, from what I see, it's the next step that is the problem. As I said earlier it is not so much the mediocre Georgians, but the older players just seeing out their time, especially those who have 'names' but no longer play to that level or standard.
Again I don't blame the players who are trying to stretch out their earnings, and who wouldn't in face of often uncertain futures? One of the penalties of the Professional Game, where most don't have anything else to return to to earn a quid.
Plus of course there are only so many 'star players' out there and the majority are always going to be 'journeyman' standard or less. I don't know what the team lists must be these days - but a minimum of 30 players I would have thought, plus God knows how many admin and coaching personnel.
I have a mate in London who is close to one of the teams that is not good enough for the First Division and too good for the Second which spends their lives bouncing from one to the other and suffering the nightmares of finding the money to keep any sort of team together.
Didn't really happen in the amateur days, where we paid our own way and just enjoyed ourselves. As I say a different world.
Brian, we must have been on opposite ends of the field as I was a staunch Spurs supporter until I got into Rugby circa. 1961, and yes I remember playing with the heavy leather balls very well - oddly mostly on the fields near the Kew Pagoda of all things?
But let's be honest, the game was nothing like played today. It was based on kick for touch and an amble down for the lineout - chuck it to the 'ladies of the half-back line' and trundle down for the next lineout. Scrums were full of assorted skullduggery where what would be called ' as a settling of accounts' took place.
The big problem for French RU as I see it is the influx of so many sub-standard overseas players. Take out these mediocre Georgians etc and spend the money developing the French youth. It's not rocket science !
I read a cost analysis of the French Rugby team v. England the other day - and yes these things can be interesting reading. The thing that stood out like dog's proverbials was the fact that England got something like £50 million from their main sponsor whilst France got? - Zilch!
France not having an HQ means ground rental (aka Stadt de France) costs in the region of €400,000 per game.
It seems that in the real world France is being hogtied to old 'moralities' which I may applaud, but doesn't help the French side progress.
this IS the problem - too many grounds are laid as if lawn bowls were to be played on them, and completely the wrong sort of 'knitting' grasses. I look at grounds just before matches and often note the nice-looking 'lawn stripes' knowing they aren't going to last. Look at the chewed up grounds and note that below a minimum turf level there is sand! Yes, it may help drainage and I am not expert enough to know if this is correct, but Blind Freddie knows that laying turf on sand is not designed for longevity?
Oh yeah, I went to a fair few Chelsea away games at White Hart Lane when they might as well have worn flippers instead of boots, especially when they were still real leather.
The DW at Wigan is a disgrace. The lack of forward planning regarding a drainage system is scandalous. Headingley rugby pitch at Leeds had the same problems until a pukka drainage system was installed about five years ago. It seems ok to spend ten million pounds on a footballer at Wigan but not a fraction of that on drains...
Seeing the DW on the tv the other evening brought back memories of White Hart Lane, Maine Road, Filbert Street and the Baseball Ground et al. in the '60 & '70s. The groundsman at Wigan must be suicidal !!
I once saw the playing fields at Rugby School where the game began, a couple of my companions more or less kissed the hallowed ground. It is not billiard table smooth and there were clearly dandelions, daisies and lots of clover in it. Obviously, from the end of season on it was allowed to grow out. Remembering where I used to play, school fields that are long since sold off and built over, a local club outside Cambridge and Surco Rugby Club URP in Lima (yes, there is a Federación Peruana de Rugby with a numerous number of clubs, Lima had a dozen in the 1970s and 80s and the sport is still growing) but none of those clubs had sheet glass level pitches with specially chosen grass the way the new grounds are. Anyway, after a really good game the ground is supposed to be chewed up and at the end of a season resemble WW1 trenches, I exaggerate just a little.
Norman, I despair at some of the new-build stadia nowadays. So much time and budget is spent on the general infrastruture and 'look' that the actaul playing surface is being forgotten making shared usage pretty useless. Take the Millenium Stadium which needs to be re laid regularly due to the bad drainage etc. The worst has to be the DW Stadium at Wigan. Ok, Central Park wasn't brilliant but the 'new' stadium built only about fifteen years ago is a disaster. The stadium was apparently built on low lying waseland and the effects of both Wigan FC and Wigan RLFC sharing this time of year is a joke.
Re- shirt sponsoring : The FFR decided back in 2012 (or therabouts) not to use a shirt sponsor for the national shirt. I seem to recall it was due to the FFR not wanting to 'cheapen' the meaning of the shirt tho' i'm sure others will correct me. The FFR as a body actually use many sponsors mainly GMF who sponsor the national membership. Other minor sponsors of the FFR include Orange, SFR, BMW, Adidas & Société Générale.