Early impressions on impressionable young minds

I imagine there are a few posters on here who came to rugby later on in their lives. Some may have played football first and then switched to rugby in their later years. Others may have never played the game but gained an appreciation of their game through their friends or came upon the sport by accident.

Then there may well be many others who grew up with the game. I´m not saying one group is better than the others. All are welcome to enjoy this wonderful sport we have. But I´m interested in what your impressions of rugby were when you were growing up. Like a band you grew up with, rugby may well have been an innate part of your life that you couldn't possibly imagine what life would have been like without it.

Often when we indulge in nostalgia, we tend to look at the world we once lived in through rose-tinted glasses. We tend to only miss what we no longer have. But sometimes, when we reflect on what once was, we get to the heart of what something meant to us at a certain time. So I´d like you to share with us your impressions of rugby as a child and then we can perhaps make the comparison at how much the game has changed in the modern professional era. Some of course will be older than others but all the more reason to see if things have changed over time.

So I´ll start off with some general impressions and then move on to key moments and memories I have when I was a little older.

My first experience of rugby was playing for a Christchurch club Suburbs. A yellow and red striped jersey, my memories of this time were frost covered grounds and walking with my sprigs on the hard ground thinking this was going to hurt when I was tackled (I was a back after all!). Then once I was out on the field and the opposition were running at me, my mind no longer entertained such thoughts and I went into the hits as normal. The smell of Deep Heat takes me back to the changing sheds and the sound of black masking tape being taken off. The big clumsy mouthguards and the sound of breath being exhaled sharply when you tackled somebody and their breath puffing out in the crisp morning air. The oranges at half time and the parents on the sideline yelling out their encouragement and some with their dissatisfaction over the ref's calls.

Jock Hobbs, Wayne Smith and Robbie Deans were Canterbury legends and they got the Log of Wood (the Ranfurly Shield) off Wellington. I remember always going down to the park with my favourite brown leather Adidas ball and pretending I was Robbie Deans and kicking the goals. The crowds those matches generated were incredible. The kids used to be able to inch closer to the field and often at the end of the match run onto the field (sometimes before the final whistle had blown) and greet their heroes as they ducked and dodged their way back to the dressing room. I´m not sure stadium capacity meant anything in those days as you were able to go where only the linesmen and ball boys go now. I remember that epic game against Auckland when we came back into a game that had seemed well and truly beyond us.

That game saw Auckland begin their domination of NZ rugby. They inspired awe and built up an intimidating record. They were the enemy in an Auckland jersey but when they donned the black shirt with the silver fern, they were rugby gods. Michael Jones and that cool nickname Iceman, Sean Fitzpatrick, Smoking Joe and the upturned collar, Zinny, Olo Brown and the straightest back in the scrums. They were like rock n roll idols. I can remember in various breaks in the playground, trying to replicate John Kirwan´s try against Italy. Sometimes I would step three, maybe four and sometimes five people but invariably somebody would line me up and absolutely hammer me. But the next time I´d get the ball, I´d try to do it all over again because you wanted to feel the power of running through that many people. I never got a real sense of what it felt like but it didn´t stop me trying.

Other than being a true red and black supporter, I remember having an affinity for other clubs. When I was younger, I liked Wellington. Alan Hewson, Bernie´s Corner, Stu Wilson. Later, when I was studying at uni, and Canterbury had the likes of Steve Cleeve and Shayne Philpott, I actually probably co-supported Otago. John Timu, Marc Ellis, Jamie Joseph, Jeff Wilson. These guys seemed to be the only Mainland team able to stand up to or at least come close to Auckland. Then later it was North Harbour. Walter Little, Frank Bunce, Buck Shelford, Eric Rush on the wing, Glen Osborne. I always liked teams with backs who wanted to run the ball. Big packs like Waikato and Auckland were impessive to watch but they didn't get the pulses racing for me like seeing a breakaway try with all the backs running at pace.

The ruck. Like cutting off a big hunk of hard cheese with a knife, there was something compelling about seeing the ball go to ground and a mean pack of forwards run over the ball and dance their way over any limb that stood in their way. I remember being on the odd occasion worked over and must confess it wasn't my favourite moment (I was a back after all!) but seeing it at the ground or on TV, there was something that happened inside of me, some sort of bloodlust that cried out for good, quick ball and for anything lying in the way of that to be destroyed.

With schools or clubs, there were certain games that had fierce rivalry. Sometimes that fury would spill over and things were done that shouldn´t have been done. But I remember after the game, shaking hands and later on catching up for a drink at the club room and conversing with the opposition and having a laugh. It was a hard game and egos or tempers sometimes got out of control on the field but all was forgiven afterwards or at least nothing else was said.

So what are things that come to your mind when remembering the place rugby had in your life when you were younger.

Kia

Wow. Amazing post. 'm not sure I can do it justice.

I started playing at school - it was pretty near compulsory. Have to admit I hated it at first - I was a wing, so spent most of my time being cold , wet miserable (bear in mind, in those days in England the forwards rarely gave the ball to the "girls" in the backs.

One memory of that time that stands out was playing in the snow. They made us walk the lines before the match to mark them out.

As I filled out a bit, I moved to outside centre & then flanker, which I still love although too wrecked to play now.

AS a flanker, I now got to play with the big boys and discovered the joy of the big hit. We started to get good in my last few years at school and just the feeling of not just winning but dominating other teams - the adrenalin, the aggression and the feeling afterwards were priceless.

All the guys I played with are still mates now.

I then started to play for my local club at a pretty decent standard and I remember the club culture ( well, remember, I'm still a member & coach the kids now). I genuinely believe you'd be hard pressed to find a nicer more genuine bunch anywhere.

The tours are especially happy memories (what I can remember of them) and the local derbies - always edgy but everyone in the bar afterwards chatting.

Mostly now, it's the kids. I love that they can all play somewhere - the flyers, the big kids, rugbys got something for them all.

Nothing I've ever done in rugby beats seeing my kids put in a fantastic performance.

Sorry I couldn't match your eloquence, but that sums up why I love rugby

The smell of deep heat still gets my adrennalin running such is the ingrained conditioned response from playing.

It might sound like nostalgia but in 1971 in my primary school in South Wales we were marched up to the old town hall (about 1/2 a mile) for 5 days on the trot and made to watch every Lions game in black and white - How the Politically Correct police would rectify that today. We cheered every try and what a bonding cultural experience it was

In 1973 I saw my first game in Cardiff aged 10, it just happened to be the Barbarians v All Blacks and that try! I have loved the Blacks since and will never forget Grant Batty starting a fight right in front of us - what a day.

Aged 12 I captained Neath and palyed at the Gnoll before a big game - I still have the picture in the house and the funniest thing is that I am there in the middle with all my shirt buttons done up to my neck and in the background just below the main stand is a young lad sticking his 2 fingers up slyly - always makes me laugh. - Dai Pickering is in the team as well.

To illustrate the culture in the schools in the valleys that time I remember when Big Will (teacher - JJ Williams older brother) "caught" a few of us playing football with one of the girls netballs - Let's just say it was the last time we played football with it.



I have less fond memories of the Ella brothers running rings around the schools side I played in -

All in all however, my life is better for having rugby stamped all over it and it has helped shape and define my own life (no pun intended)

I had no exposure to rugby as a kid. Northside Dublin was never a hotbed of the oval ball. Instead we spent hours playing football with matches going on for days and scores into the hundreds. Unfortunately, even after all that practice I was rubbish as I was at GAA. I always loved watching the 6 nations, though I had no idea what was going on.
Then when I was about 15 I was aked to go to a training session in our nearest club. I loved it from the off. While a lack of skills subdued my enjoyment of the other codes I was however very good in a tackle. The buzz I got from a rugby tackle... I jut can't describe it. When you time it just right.. you at full speed.. opposition at full speed.. BANG and a moment of weightlessness before his back hits the deck and a donkeylike honk escapes his body.
Don't know how my life would be now if I hadn't found rugby. I would not have the same friends, job, wife, kids for starters. Gettin all misty.

It always fascinates me how some people started off their rugby career in one position like you wickedwasp and then end up in somewhere completely unrelated. I was always a scrawny kid and am pretty lean now so could never entertain life as a forward.

Those are some nice memories guys. Neath is a big rugby name in NZ. I couldn´t tell you where it was in Wales but it´s certainly on the rugby map like Munster in NZ. Good on you SubMachine. Sport in general can have such a positive impact on life but nice to hear rugby had such a positive impact on yours.

I forgot to add how I was transfixed as a child in our family room (that´s what at least the name we gave the room that was converted from a garage with a pool table and drum set and guitar amps.) with the black and white photo of my father in the Oxford University team playing Kirkpatrick´s touring AB side in the 1970s. It made me recall those videos of Pine Tree running down the field with the ball in one hand making it look more like a coconut in that giant hand.

Talking of the Ella brothers, when I was growing up Australian rugby was taking off and the traditional enemy SA was taken out of the game and replaced by those gold and green jumpers. Campese, Ella and then later that formidable side of Little, Horan, Eales, etc. NZ rugby was lucky we were able to replace such a great rival with an equally effective one.

That first series win in SA with John Preston kicking the goals was a standout when SA returned to the game and their contribution to world rugby since makes it all the sadder their absence, regardless of the fact it was in many ways a justified absence.

Those Ella boys finsihed so young, about 24 I think, similar to Barry John - I once faced the 3 of them as a full back and still my head spins thinking about it

I have a few first rugby memories, all of which are from when I was with London Welsh Under 7s. One of them is when, during a training exercise where we had about a one metre wide channel, we had to step past the tackler (this was all touch rugby days so it's all we could do). Anyway, me, being keen to play rugby like the first team we'd watch most weeks, thought 'wait a second, why am I avoiding contact?' and ended up charging right through the tackler with him running off crying and me getting told off by the coaches. No wonder I'm now a prop. Another memory is around the same age when I was at the club and the Welsh team were training there, I remember being lifted up with by the Quinnell brothers and then kicking with Neil Jenkins. Still have the photos of that day.

Since then I've moved from fullback all the way to loosehead, playing pretty much every single position available. I miss the backrow and centres. Rugby at that point was just something we did on a sunday, and really was about hanging around the clubhouse all day and playing pool after matches/training. I feel out of love with club rugby at about year 6/7 as I was a wendyballer, and quit school rugby for a season at year 9. When I returned a year later I'd put on a lot of weight and was moved to prop from flanker. Since then it's been my main focus and joy in life.

Going to a public primary school in Queensland it was all about rugby league for me growing up. It wasn't until I went to a private high school that I was introduced to union. When I ran out for my first pre-season game I had absolutely no idea what the rules were, just that it was 'similar' to league. A mate gave me some handy last minute advice, the gist of which was 'when you end up on the ground, cover anything that's important to you' which was back in the good old days when if someone was on the ground you were perfectly entitled to shoe them to your hearts content regardless of where they were in relation to the ball.

I had only seen league 'scrums' and expected much the same in union... nobody told me they take them so seriously so I just gingerly leaned in for a league-style effort in the second row to nearly have my neck and spine concertinaed.

Playing touring sides from other countries was great fun too. Facing my first haka in school was memorable. It was led by a giant of a bloke who looked like he had just swallowed a sheep and who, in all likelihood had a wife and kids at home. I think everyone stopped keeping score once they hit 70.

A rugby tour to central Queensland was quite memorable, one of my fondest growing up. One particular game was pretty spiteful (it was essentially an 80 minute brawl). At one stage a game of rugby threatened to break out but we saw to that. By the end pretty much everyone had been binned at one point or another, I think at one stage it was going to be about 8 against 9 and the game was just called off. The locals were hurling beer cans and we were lucky to make it back to the bus in one piece. Funny to look back on.

At school, in the changing rooms afterwards it was all about who had the most tag marks and cuts and bruises. If you weren't covered all over your back in stud marks then you must have been seagulling it.

For club rugby we played a few Japanese teams who were always surprisingly good and unbelievably fast. After they'd flog us we'd set up the beer tent on the field (because our clubhouse was a demountable that was so small you had to go outside to change your mind) and, despite not being able to communicate at all, we'd indulge in endless hours of drinking-based competition which was often more keenly contested than the rugby. The image of a Japanese sumo-esque prop necking a litre of beer in what can only be described as 'a few gulps' still stays with me.

So many great memories, wouldn't trade them for anything.

Ruby...the thought of playing against the 3 Ella boys makes me smile
Although I am English (and proud of it despite our national team......don't go there) I had 5 years in Sydney growing up in the 70s. I learnt to play there on hard sunny pitches. I am a back and to me rugby is a running game as that is how I learnt to play (makes supporting England even stranger ). When I returned to the U.K. aged 10 my brother and I had strong Aussie accents and we even supported Australia back then. I loved the Ella boys and really enjoyed their tours of the U.K. and Ireland.

Then I was stuck into boarding school and cold winters, grey skies and lots of rugby....just a different type, but I still loved it. I just found the running style slightly harder when wading through mud with frost bitten fingers. I played club rugby in London, which socially was great fun and rugby wise was greatly improved when a number of Kiwis arrived on their gap year/s. I played centre alongside some guy who played for Bay of Plenty against the Lions and that was fun. He smashed everyone back and I then took advantage.

Now...like WickedWasp I love the game via my kids (boys aged 11 and 9). They play in many festivals and it is great to see so many kids playing and enjoying the game. My 11 yr old went on a school tour to Wales and played 3 sides and visited the Millenium stadium (full tour) and came back a foot taller for the buzz and enjoyment of it all. Tomorrow I head to Norfolk with 9 yr old son where his side play in a festival at Holt on Sunday. Should be fun!

There are plenty but one that probably resonates with members over a certain age, regardless of nationality, was listening to international matches on the radio.
The 1976 All Black tour of South Africa included 7 or 8 provincial matches that werent televised. I remember listening,with my father or grandfather, in the middle of the night to games being blasted out of the radio from exotic sounding places. There was something quite amazing hearing broadcasts from Orange Free State, Natal, Pretoria as an x year old child!

I was always a red and black supporter but there were some grim years in the 90s. We were overshadowed in the early days of Super Rugby by Auckland but then that flukey try to James Kerr and then it clicked for Canterbury.

But I remember as well as my love for my province Canterbury I loved watching other club games. West Coast vs Buller for the wooden spoon in the 3rd division. Manawatu, Northland, King Country, Southland, Counties Manukau, Hawkes Bay were not big sides but they always seemed to have a superstar or someone very useful that made you warm to them and want to watch their matches.

The Super comp now seems to dilute our national championship and wins there don´t mean as much as perhaps they once did. It´s good though to see the Ranfurly Shield still circulating and not tied up in one club.

I must also confess to being drawn in by the French teams. I´ve always had an affinity for Scotland (through my father) and Ireland (I was too young to see Wales dominate the ABs and England were like SA in terms of public enemy number one for NZ even though I admired many of their players) but the French team were the matches I´d wake up in the middle of the night to see. When they clicked they were an unstoppable force and though I respect their massive pack and incredible defence, I lament the fact that France has well and truly taken the conservative line in the new millennium and gone for defence and moved away from the French flair. Players like Serge Blanco, Phillipe Sella, Olivier Merle or Emile Ntamack were names I knew as well as AB players.

Some beautiful stories here guys. Enjoyed reading them.

My exposure to rugby started when I was around 7 years old, my parents got divorced and I spent most weekends as a kid at my uncles house in Capetown, helping him with all sorts around the hous. not sure i was much help then, but he was great. He only had daughters so I guess I was his substitute son.

I remember my first game at a stadium, he took me to Newlands to see Western Province pulverise Far Northern Transvaal.

It was amazing as a small kid to sit so high in the stands and watch them play.

We moved a lot when I grew up, went to 7 Primary schools as my mother tried to settle and find affordable accommodation.

So moving from one school to the next I never got to play. Teachers have already selected their team from the previous year, so I would be ball boy, or bring oranges on.

I was full of admiration and sadness for not being able to play.

Eventually I went to high school, and because I now knew how the teachers selected their teams, I just lied when they asked who played rugby the previous year at Primary school.

So I landed up in the U14 B team as eighthman, most of my team mates were from the Grade 9 classes so they decided to take me under their protection.

In those days school boy rugby was as much about winning the game as it was about winning the fight.

I will never forget my first game ever I played against Randfontein High school ( a mining community), these boys were tough as nails, But I gave as good as I got and walked off the pitch with a bloodied nose, rugby jersey full of it and my head held high. As a young boy that was certainly one of my proudest moments.

Anayway playing rugby at school was more than just playing sport, in SA it is a status symbol, nobody messes with you, you walk tall and are the main man. But it was also about friendship, camaraderie and learning respect for others.

Rugby in Sa schools are about being favoured and being revered by teachers, and we all took as much out of that as we could.

After school I went to Varsity and then army, so needles to say it was quite a number of years later when I went back.

I was 26 when I decided on the insistence of my brother in law to join Edenvale club.

I guess because I was an adult then I appreciated the priviledge of the playing the game more.

As a young guy although not very big, I was enormously strong in my legs and back and at a mere 92KG was a playing loose head prop which in my opinion is not a comlicated position. You ensure the opponents don't get a right shoulder at scrum time, and you tackle anything that moves.

I hated those bloody wings who had enough pace to run around me so when I had ball in hand my gal was always to run over them.

I got that opportunity at training one evening when I had the ball in hand and saw my brother in law in front of me, so I was all gung ho.

He waited until he saw me drop my shoulder and then simply moved out of the way, needles to say I went to ground as my momentum went forward faster than I could keep up.

After the training session he told me I had the look of death about me and he wasn't going to find out the rest.

Anyway, sorry for the long story.

Awesome thread kia. Ill post mine when i can get the kids off the pcs.
Do you recall the 83 shield match kia?
That was one incredible match with victor simpson running over lyndsay harris to score and andrew mcmaster sprinting to the corner. 28-9 from memory.

That match started the grizz hart era and after that hart resolved never to let it happen again and built what i think is the best provincial team in history from 84.

but us aucklanders were reelong from that match such was the impact. It also timed with the emergence of the marist club in auckland with the brookes jk terry wright mcahill and so on.

The 85 shield match one of the most memorable as you know. Interesting to see a cantabrian take on the era by far the biggest influence on me and mates of my day. Heaven for rugby fans the 80s in Auckland though truly despised elsewhere.

Rugby might as well not exist where i am from, we didnt play it at school. One of my friends(he was irish) loved the game and we played it occasionally at lunch time, but that was it.

However i am a sucker for watching any sport on telly and allways was as a kid.

I didnt really play much footy either- it was golf, basketball,table tennis, pool or snooker. However watched international rugby, cricket and football like it was a religion even when i was a nipper!

I was always exposed to rugby, my earliest memories are of my dad sitting on the living room floor with a red knitted bottle hat and scarf on, drunk while cheering Wales on! He used to bring me to tears because he used to yell so loud. I actually think my Mum banned him from watching it at home in the end because he used to scare me so much!

Even though my Dad is now 60, and I'm 32 I work for my fathers business and I jump a mile when he gets angry or shouts about something, he scares me to death. I put it down to him screaming at the tv when I was a baby.

It was no different at my Grand parents house either, every time without exception I would go there my Grand father would be watching "The Crowning Years Of Welsh Rugby" on VHS video. He died many years ago, but I have his video safe in my bedroom. He was a member of Pyle rugby club and I can remember going there on Saturday's as a child playing while he watched the games.

I'm a Kenfig Hill boy, and the rivalry between Pyle and Kenfig Hill is pretty intense, Kenfig Hill rugby club's clubhouse was actually shut down because of a riot there many years ago after a local derby (wrecked), but going there as a kid I think I'm one of the few people in Kenfig Hill who doesn't mind Pyle too much! There is only about 2 minutes travelling time between the Kenfig Hill and Pyle rugby clubs.

i don't rea;;y have an earliest memory of rugby - my Dad played fairly serious club rugby when I was little, and I remember having a plastic rugby ball from being about 5 or 6 that we played with in the street.
My first game, and indeed most of my playing experience (bar a few games at University) is in League, where I started off as a centre or winger, before getting moved to full back while at high school.

At Uni I continued my League career, but made the rather odd positional switch from full back to hooker (hence the user name) - enjoyed it immensely because you are so involved in the game, taking the ball at almost every play and being right in the heart of the defence. I always liked the tackling side of things, and always got particular satisfaction from nailing an opposing prop who thought he'd run at the little guy.

First experience of Union was as an emergency winger for the Uni third XV - I think I touched the ball three times in the match, all in defensive positions where I just had to kick it away (fortunately, a skill I had developed despite playing RL) - a bit of a difference from my involvement in League games. Played a few more matches, and eventually found a niche as a 12 (mostly just in friendly inter-hall or inter-departmental games). I do though regret not taking it a bit further and really getting the nuances of the game nailed - I always preferred to off-load from a tackle rather than set up a ruck as I wasn't really sure on how to fall and how to place the ball.

Too old, too slow and too lazy to play any more.

Watching the 5N, as it was then gave me a love for the game. I was in a huge care home complex in the outskirts of London and was the first kid from the place to go to a school where rugby was the winter sport.

I was a titch at 4' 4" (I only started growing at 15) but took to playing the game like a duck to water. Hooker for starters then 9 after a year.

Given my surroundings at the time, it would have been easy to drift into the - not so great - world of some of my peers, most of whom were in trouble with the law on a regular basis.

Rugby didn't 'save me' - even as a kid I knew the difference between right and wrong. But rugby gave me a focus that kept that attitude in me for sure.

I got the pee taken out of me by the other kids in the care home because I went to 'that school', but I know who came out of there better off.

And a huge thank you to the Principal of that home; a rugby loving Welshman who encouraged me and also took me to live games.

I started playing rugby at my secondary school and the season was split into 2. The first half was rugby then football.
I was a sports nut and loved everything I played but I always felt there was something different about rugby. I was always a bit gutted when we had to switch to football but then the weather changed for the better and generally most of the rugby players were the in the football team
I started fly half then moved to flanker (best position on the pitch in my book) and made county level. Before sustaining a bad knee injury at 17, I carried on playing both games had a trial for QPR and became a supporter of Wasps when they moved to Loftus Road.
I have followed rugby closely ever since with one eye on QPRs results.

I went to a Soccer School,in a soccer area,we were taught Rugby [a little]by a
ex-Navel PTI.I played for the School team and a little,post school it was mostly Public School played Rugby.
My first Tv Program was watching a England vFrance match circa 1952-3,and watching the Touring AllBlacks 1953-4[LIve twice]
Which is why I became there biggest fan,TV coverage[BBC] was limited the odd International and University match that was it.
Well into the 1960`s until decent coverage occurred,even now you pay for it mostly.
There is no local team at pro level,in my area and transport too those like Bath is costly for me.
I did watch Touring sides in the local Park when they came here,which was seldom.
That was in the time when it was 10 years apart,I saw Ian Clarke play on both the 1953 and 1963 tours.
Rugby was so amateur in those days Lions teams met 14 days before getting on a Liner to tour.They were paid £0.25 a day out of pocket expenses !!!.and paid in a lot of cases out of there own pockets for the honour.

Never been any good at the game, but supporting Rugby has always been there in the background somewhere. My earliest memories are watching the then 5Ns with my parents and the great Welsh sides of the 70s running rings round us, and my Dad explaining that you appreciated great play, even if it was from the opposing team.

Playing in House matches at school. A serious matter at the time! Even if you were rubbish, as I was, you could still at least put your body on the line.

Going to Welford Road on Boxing Day - but supporting the opposition because I had a cousin playing for them. My mother, sister and I sat in a sea of Tigers supporters who all turned round and grinned every time we yelled for Ballymena. I've supported Tigers ever since.

But mainly for me Rugby has been about following the toils and travails of the England team. The 18 months leading up to the 2003 WC are the best I've ever seen us play, but in many respects the Carling years were the most fun, because we'd never done anything like it before.

edit: Great thread this, btw. Some wonderful stories!

Fantastic article Kia, it's now up on the Journal.

http://www.v2journal.com/early-impressions-picking-up-a-love-for-a-sport.html

While I have some vague memories of the '83 Lions tour, the Canterbury vs Auckland Shield match is one of my earliest rugby memories.

My brother had a kidney removed when he was 3, so contact sports were a no-no for him. That meant that our parents encouraged us into cricket as our main "playing" sport as it was something we could both do. Hence my first "proper" (ignoring schoolyard stuff, and place-kicking or force-back contests with my bro) game of rugby came when I was 11, when my primary school (Renwick) played it's annual match against St Mary's (the private Catholic school in Blenheim). We only had 18 boys in form 1 & 2 (including my brother, and one boy with a bad knee) so being selected was a given. I played lock wearing my Dad's 30 year-old boots, got caught at the bottom of a few rucks, and loved it.

Growing up in Marlborough in the 80s meant living in the aura of the 1973-74 Ranfurly Shield reign, after the men from such a small province produced the greatest upset in Shield history, upsetting the big southern neighbour Canterbury at Lancaster Park. TVNZ had raced a camera down to the Park at half-time in that match as a boilover looked on, so there was even the occasional highlights clip. By the late '80s the province had declined and performances matched it's size - the big highlight was seeing Ian Stark play 10 for the Divisional XV (a team selected from the NPC 2nd division), or him having to mark Grant Fox for the Possibles vs the Probables in the old AB's trials.

Dad used to delight though in pointing out 1973 Canterbury skipper Alex Wylie's mailbox in North Canterbury on rare excursions (it was a 5 hour drive from the farm) to Christchurch, which passing Marlborough fans used to paint "Red Devils" red on a regular basis in the years following 1973.

Secondary school meant being in the same form class as future AB's captain Anton Oliver - you soon learnt the wisdom of being on his team in Phys Ed class, he was 2 years bigger than his age group, excelled at every sport and had that "my Dad was an All Black" mana. I played enough rugby to seal my love for the game, but sadly lacked the talent to progress, especially as I was turning into a handy cricketer at the time, and my folks didn't really have the money to support travel and equipment for two sports so I drifted out of playing.

University meant moving to Christchurch, and attending NPC matches with fellow students from my Hall of Residence. One of my fellow residents was from Auckland and made the mistake of wearing blue and white on the Embankment he left the ground covered in beer and worse.

A couple of years later saw the start of the great Crusaders era in Super 12. Being able to support a team that represented both my home province and my adopted one just felt right.

Cheers Kiwi. Nice pics. Just seeing that brown adidas ball sends me back.

I couldn´t go to the match Taylorman but I remember watching it on TV and when the ball went dead with all those kids swarming round I felt guttered I wasn't there even though we lost.

Thanks for all your stories. I must confess I had a big laugh at the image of Bilton huffing and puffing trying to Jonah Lomu that zippy little guy and falling flat. I´m sure you didn't tell us about the time when you did connect though mate.

I could tell you about my high knee action, but that would just be a downright lie.

Yeah there were a few times where driving through those little guys gave me much pleasure, but to be honest I crowed like a ... well crow, every time I managed to catch one of those speedsters.

Do recall some of that shield era kiwi. Alan and i think ray sutherland and steve marfell the centre had 4 brothers playing or something like that. Brian ford and his battles with beegee in the north south matches.
From memory marlborough beat france in 69 didnt they?
The famous manawatu run came not long after marlborough et all finished handing the log around. Massive team with hugh blair ken granger cowboy hayburner calleson knight old hemara donaldson you name it.

I guess I never had any other game in my mind from being 7 or 8. My older brother started playing at Grammar school and I always expected to follow suit. I had one term at the same school before Dad was moved to a new town and the Grammar school I was moved to played football, it was another 2 years before I could join my local club.

Most of what I knew was from watching rugby on the tv, it all seemed pretty instinctive. I knew how I wanted to play and it was all about doing it with style. Teaching myself to pass off both hands, trying to kick from either foot, place kicking accurately but never with great range, working out how to tackle any size player from any angle, just trying to be the best I could at the things I needed to do. Playing with the colts was great. I was pretty much the youngest and playing full back meant growing up pretty quick on the physical side. By the time I was 15 I was captain and although not playing at school I eventually won a place in my county schoolboys side at full back and have the distinction of being the only person ever to be awarded full school colours for rugby. My first full cap for the club 1st team at 19 yrs old was a landmark away to Roundhesians, making a try saving tackle and getting roundly told off for kicking for touch from the edge of melee on our tryline because of the risk of a charge down sticking in my mind like it was yesterday.

Rugby was my life and will always remain the only team sport that matters. It is the greatest game on the planet, a true test of skill and courage.

Rugby was my life and will always remain the only team sport that matters. It is the greatest game on the planet, a true test of skill and courage.

Amen to that.

I dont remember first playing rugby, it was just what you did with the lads with a ball. Our first rugby balls were made by a friends mother with newspaper and celotape, just to pass. Great unless it rained or someone kicked it.

The first time rugby was an organised sport was at school, we played soccer and did gymnastics and athletics at the boys club, but my first year at Grammar School was the first time we played rugby. I played scrum half and center for the first few years.

I remember the rugby master telling me i was a good tackler because i was short and solid, "a pocket battleship" was his description. This was all well and good until i tackled this huge prop playing for the school when i was about fourteen and broke my collar bone. A broke my noes scoring my first try, a break from the back of the scrum and under the posts. Only to be kicked in the face by one of the opposition as slid in the mud over the line.

I was luckily accepted into University, my family were not wealthy, we were comfortable, nine kids, my father was employed as an engineer at Glynncorrwg Colliery he started the day the pit opened. I was encouraged to study hard, three of my elder brothers had been to the Grammar School but I was the first to be accepted to a university so my studies were far more important than playing sports, I didn't play again until my mid twenties when I would occasionally play a game here or there wherever I was based. I moved to New Zealand and then to Australia where i started to play touch rugby then was encouraged to pull on the number nine shirt and latterly in Oz and later in HKG the honoured ten shirt. My eldest brother Eifryn was a great local ten, he mocked me for being a mere scrum half or centre.

Watching and listening to rugby was and still is a great memory. The Lions touring to the Southern Hemisphere, listening to the radio with my brothers and father, maybe an uncle or a neighbour in our parlour, silence until a try then muted discussion for a few seconds on the wonders of Lions talent on display. I remember aged eleven, us tying the series in South Africa. It was a huge ordeal because there had only been one tour since the War and although we beat the Wallabies we were smashed in the tests with the All Blacks and that is what really mattered as the Australians were not seen as a rugby nation then. They were like Italy are now to the six nations.

I remember the watching the 71 Lions tour in Manly, Sydney Australia in the rugby league clubhouse with hundreds of cheering Australians, it was just like home but with colder beer.

Biltong don`t be modest about your high knee action,BALLET SCHOOL RIGHT?
Joking apart,a Nz ballet star[male] offered to teach ALL BLACK Lock [Nev Mckewan]to jump 6inches higher at lineouts.Incidentally Nev was one of two AllBlacks in the 1963 Wellington Athletic club tour that played Blackheath among others.Few NZ Clubs ever toured here presumably cost,come to that Mini-tours
had only just gained credit then.France 1958,1964 to SA,and France 1961,England 1963.France were THE first to win tours in SA,the sides mentioned in NZ lost.The England side was very much a scratch one,but was relatively successful.It took a 65 metre Goal from a Mark by Don Clarke,to win the 2nd test.Incidentally Roger Hosen the England Fullback was another Goalkicker of the Howitzer variety then in fashion.

It was actually can can dancing alan, I never were able to pirouette.

I started paying rugby when I was about 10. We literally played 10-man rugby (each team had only ten players: no loose-forwards and only 5 backs!) and we played barefoot. Winter in SA can actually be quite chilly, so I have some memories of early morning games, running barefoot in the frost. Then again if you played midday, it would be hot and dry, and you'd be running around on a field without a single green blade of grass, with your lungs burning, with grazes all over your knees from being tackled on the rock-hard 'field'....

Ah, mrfishpaste, do you remember those grassburns on those dry hard fields?

A harsh reality that rugby was also painful. I remember at Edenval club one year there was a fire on the A and B fields and we had to play on those burnt fields, man that was unpleasant. The hot shower after was excruciating.

biltongbek wrote:Ah, mrfishpaste, do you remember those grassburns on those dry hard fields?

A harsh reality that rugby was also painful. I remember at Edenval club one year there was a fire on the A and B fields and we had to play on those burnt fields, man that was unpleasant. The hot shower after was excruciating.

A contrast to Wales, you could have drowned in the mud of some of the pitches we played on...

Yeah, we get absolutely almost no rain in the winter months. From april to End July the is frost in the morning, but becuase of the Sun it burns the grass so it goes dry. The Highveldt is the most dull scenery in winter.

Dad used to take me down to Abertillery Park when I was about 6/7/8/9>?Lasting memory of the smell of pipe smoke in the stand.Watched Alun Pask,Haydn Morgan and Allan Lewis who were all British Lions playing for MY home town.Fantastic!!
I wanted to be Haydn but I was short and well-covered so I was picked as hooker when I was 8 years old.
Gradually grew taller and quicker and more short-sighted and went through 2nd row,backrow,centres and ended up on the wing where my speed was useful and my near-blindness was less of an issue!
The team spirit,the unity,the responsibility,the camaraderie gave me the buzz.
Never lost it.Love the game!!!!!!!!!!

We get green beauty all year round, mind you we get rain all year round...

biltongbek wrote:Ah, mrfishpaste, do you remember those grassburns on those dry hard fields?

A harsh reality that rugby was also painful. I remember at Edenval club one year there was a fire on the A and B fields and we had to play on those burnt fields, man that was unpleasant. The hot shower after was excruciating.

That reminds me...Otahuhu played a lot of its matches at a park in Mount Richmond (near Panama Roads old haunt the Duke of Wellington). During the week it doubles as a farm for grazing cows for the local farmer.

One match the entire field was full of cow dung- it was everywhere- hard dry ground but full of cow dung. Good thing for me was (in the teeless days) I was able to tee the tee the ball 6 inches high by gathering up a heap of cow dung. I still remember the ref's face when he saw me picking up and placing globs of it up for the kicks...best tee's i ever had!

Taylorman

I played for a couple of years for Oats 3rd grade team,and I know every inch of those tracks up and down Mt Richmond, and the cold showers in that concrete block changing sheds.

Taylorman wrote:

biltongbek wrote:Ah, mrfishpaste, do you remember those grassburns on those dry hard fields?

A harsh reality that rugby was also painful. I remember at Edenval club one year there was a fire on the A and B fields and we had to play on those burnt fields, man that was unpleasant. The hot shower after was excruciating.

That reminds me...Otahuhu played a lot of its matches at a park in Mount Richmond (near Panama Roads old haunt the Duke of Wellington). During the week it doubles as a farm for grazing cows for the local farmer.

One match the entire field was full of cow dung- it was everywhere- hard dry ground but full of cow dung. Good thing for me was (in the teeless days) I was able to tee the tee the ball 6 inches high by gathering up a heap of cow dung. I still remember the ref's face when he saw me picking up and placing globs of it up for the kicks...best tee's i ever had!

Reminds me of when at school we trained in a field full of cowpats.One of the second row ended up sitting in a fresh one before we went to play a practice game.As I was pl;aying number 8 at the time I was far from impressed,though I now have a lovely complexion!

Compounding the 'hard-fields' problem was playing at schools that had only one field, so there'd be a cricket pitch in the middle of the rugby field! (Cricket being the summer sport of choice). Sometimes there was almost a gentleman's agreement not to tackle each other on it (that, or it hurt the tackler as much as the tackled to land on a cricket pitch!)

Yeah, how can I forget the all sacred cricket pitch.

aucklandlaurie wrote: Taylorman

I played for a couple of years for Oats 3rd grade team,and I know every inch of those tracks up and down Mt Richmond, and the cold showers in that concrete block changing sheds.

Yeah I was in 3rd grade under Steve Watt. That concrete block of showers from memory was hardly ever open when we got there- changed outside it and back at the club afterwards.

I think the field was used for the Hellaby meatworks down the road. They were good training runs through there to the Otahuhu Leopards ground round the other side but the gound itself, hard as heck preseason and a bog through the year.

Big game tonight Laurie- battle of the tops for Highlanders and Stormers.

When I was at Otahuhu,Steve watt was still playing.
I do remember the cowdung all over the field though. I also had a stint playing league at the Leopards,and guess what the coach made us do on our first night of training? you got...Back up the hill.

Wow, seeing all these stories makes me hope I have such tales to tell in years to come.

My rugby love affair started pretty late for a young guy... Didn't pick up an egg until the age of 13 when we had a session in PE at school with our ex-IRFU ref for a PE teacher. But I was hooked... Had played GAA at clubs for a few years by then but I was never going to be any more than below average. But rugby? Here was something I could do! Was a short stocky lad at that age so immediately got made into a prop and I loved it!

Played for my local club for 5 years until I left grammar school (which even though it was the biggest school in Ulster for GAA, still managed to produce half the underage teams at Dungannon, a testament to my PE teacher) I played either loose or hooker for most of my time at underage, apart from a foray at openside after my comeback from a broken collarbone. Also somehow managed to be lucky enough to be coached by ex-Lion and Ireland 2nd row Jeremy Davidson and have such Ulster legends as Neil Doak, Tyrone Howe and even Tommy Bowe coach at one point or another.

Then I moved across the Irish sea to Glasgow and found myself in the position of playing for the medical faculty team, and at tighthead too... Still play now for them although games are few and far between at the minute!

But I found other ways to express my love of rugby. Got a volunteer job at Glasgow Warriors and have managed to make the most of that by getting to Scotland Internationals and every Heino and Pro12 game for the past year and a half Glasgow have played. Met a few idols of mine and hopefully a few more to go before I graduate.

But I doubt the love of rugby will ever die... Just going to have to pay to see it now! And I'm just fine with that!