What rugby memory do you have that has improved over time

[Happy]

haha .. the never ending story burgs

[Burgs]

Sorry to test your attention span mate

[bort]

surely there more of these gold stories?
ill give you a couple of rather disturbing ones ive witnessed/experienced quickly, not as well written but as im terribly hungover...
and they are from league, as thats all ive played, please forgive me!

Good Way to get rid of soft opposition:
once we were playing at my club and all supporters all sit out the front of the club along one sideline, with no1 on the other side. i manage to get half a grab on a prop as he runs past me, enough to slow him down. with a firm grasp of either side of his waist area i attempted to sling him to the ground. anyone ever seen that trick where you pull the tablecloth off without disturbing the goods on the table? well it turns out what i had a firm grasp of was either side of his underwear. tore it clean off. i was left holding a (large) torn piece of cloth with his hairy ass hanging out the top of his pants, which had pulled down a bit, exposing the "goods" to the crowd. despite having half an hour or so of play left he was substituted and ran straight into the dressings sheds and didnt see him again!

How to ensure the ref is biased against you:
we are in the sheds before the game and our captain asks "so which ref do we have?" and our coach replies "the one who sh@t himself". then guess who decided that moment would be an excellent time to enter our change rooms? he did NOT look impressed to say the least, and we did seem to be penalised a fair bit that game. to be fair but, he did sh!t himself. literally. about two weeks before he was reffing an Agrade game and me and most of my team (18s) were watching. early second half ref blows time off for no apparent reason, grab his upper thigh and bolts off the field, diarrhea running down his legs! one of the touchies took over for the rest of the match. he had food poisoning apparently but thats still no excuse.

[frontrow]

I love it mate, sure would've been a funny sight to behold...
I have just reread my original story, and still brings a smile to my face every time i recollect it...
I really wish we could hear more stories though, i know there are plenty of us out there who can spin a yarn...Good work Burgs by the way, standing your ground and all. I reckon getting stitched up without anaesthetic is pretty bloody hardcore too...
Well, i would like to recall my, how can i put this, not so fairest and best match...

'twas back in my Blakehurst days in Sydney, playing against the roughest pack of A holes you have ever seen, the team from Merrylands(near Parramatta) at there home ground. It was just another wet saturday afternoon, and i had just played a whole game of third grade (due to shortage of props), and was now backing up for second grade after a torrid, hard fought victory in thirds.( As an aside, anyone who thinks being a prop is a cakewalk think again, not too many positions can only be filled by suitably qualified player, so more often than not you are gauranteed to be playing more than one game a day, be it thirds and seconds, then backing up for firsts, or if you are lucky thirds, then a break, then firsts.)
To say the third grade game was a clean affair would be a blatent misrepresentation of the truth, but it was a mere prelude to the second grade affair.
After only two or three minutes from the kickoff we came to our first scrum, the initial clash of the titans, the butting of heads, and the groans of eight on eight, only to see the packs collapse on the rain soaked turf...
Slowly i clambered to my knees to resume my postion where out of nowhere came two hands either side of my head, gripping my ears, as my opposite number reams his knee straight into my face with plenty of follow through...Nearly knocked my bloody head clean off, and probably would have if not for the second rower behind me stopping my heads backward momentum...Blood starts pouring from my nose as i literally see red, and it was as if someone had reached in and turned on every ounce of anger and rage in my system as i proceeded to richochete back into the opposites knee again...I had been blatently smashed and i was incensed. I rallied to my feet and proceeded to reach over to this fellow and grabbed his jumper in a vicelike grip, upon which i proceeded to rain down a hail of punches, repeatedly hitting him around the head and face, as he was doing to myself at the same time, and as i found out later, the whole frontrow was doing to each other...However, as the ref was on their side of the scrum they simmered down pretty quickly, but we continued to trade blow for blow, that was until my not so smart second rower took it upon himself to restrain me by grabbing my fist...At this opportunity, my opposite number took it upon himself to go the headbutt, and i believed that was when the fair and decent frontrow(myself), SNAPPED...As a reflex, i elbowed my secondrower in the side of his head in an effort to release his grip on my fist, which succeeded, and i returned to the fight until i was eventually dragged away by my entire pack, and was duly sent to the sin bin for ten minutes, as was my now heavily concussed and bleeding opponent...
All the while i was on the bench people where telling me to settle down, calm down, take it easy, etc...But i had quite literally stopped receiving information in, i was determined to go back out onto the field and reap my vengeance, which is pretty much what happened when i went back on....
While i was off the pitch several skirmishes had broken out all over the pitch, but nothing too solid. A lot was going on in the tackle and rucks, which the ref ignored for the most part....
I returned to the pitch after ten minutes and almost immediately another scrum was called, upon which i proceeded to prepare for battle, but alas, my opponent had not returned to the fray, so i proceeded to blitz the replacement prop for the rest of the match,as i believe he was a bit out of his depth given the circumstances( there were no lore stoushes up front that day)...
Now, i know rage can create some unusual circumstances, and in my case it did, i was almost first at every breakdown, cleanout, pick and drive, and i was tackling anything that moved, with malice....
At halftime i listened to the coach heap praise on the team, and refer to the effort i was putting in, but at the same time trying to tell me to play with less malice, which i wasn't having any of...I was in a zone, a not all too pleasant zone agreed...
Well, the niggles and skirmishes went on through the game and the odd fight broke out here and there with all ins the theme for the day, but once again a prelude to the main event with minutes left on the clock...
Another scrum, another heavy clash and they win their scrum. I had steadily worn my opponent down and found him wanting by this stage, so that when the ball had exited the scrum i released my grip off him and belted off to the next breakdown,only this time the halfback decided that he would dart around from the back of the scrum and try to sneak past myself and the flanker behind me....Lets just say he never did make that mistake again, as i basically released myself from the scrum and leapt onto him as a lion would a small gazelle, and proceeded to land all 120kg of myself on his tiny 60kg frame...
Legitimate tackle, lights out....
Game over... I made sure of his safety after i nailed him, removing his mouthgaurd and putting him in the recovery position, and stayed with him till they had loaded him in to the ambulance, i also apologised tohim when he regained conciousness, although i don't know if he remembers that...
It may look like i enjoy the biff, which isn't necessarily untrue, i don't mind it if it isn't spiteful and vindictive...I believe i have never played a dirty game, if anything, for a prop, i believed i have played a generally clean style apart from the odd headclash or uppercut. Up until that day anyway...At the post match huddle again praise was handed out to the team for playing a tough game in tough circumstances, and i was singled out again as having a belter, but the coach reminded us that the best player of the day may well have been myself, but the category definition was Best and Fairest, therefore i was out of contention for the award, although plenty of the lads were buying me beers that night, except for my secondrower mate...For some reason, he wasn't too happy with me...

[bort]

couple of other quick little stories...

actions speak louder than words:
a few years ago we had a player on our team who was deaf. couldnt hear a thing. which sucked when he was defensively out of position (a lot of wild waving was required) but he was a decent player so it was ok, although he could never be in any plays lol. during one game, about average in violence levels, he accidentally high tackled one of the opposition fellas. the bloke jumped up and proceeded to scream about every obscenity ive ever heard in our deaf players face. he just stood there staring at the guy casually. one of the other blokes who had been involved in the tackle shouts 'oi ******** hes deaf he cant ****ing hear you!' and the opposition player then throws the ball at our deaf player who promptly smacks him in the face, dropping him. and then he just turns around and starts walking off towards the bench. we waved him back though because he wasnt sin binned or anything, in fact we got the penalty as the ref missed the high tackle and the ball throwing was seen as provocation.

Racism in sport:
i think we can all agree theres no place for it but if there is then this is it.
it was a game against probably our most fierce rivals of the time, which made it all the sweeter. after a failed raid at their line we had turned over and the opposition were trying to charge their way out from right on their tryline. on the 2nd tackle they were no more than 15 meters from the try line and one of them passes to another and upon doing so shouts 'RUN N!GGER RUN! RUN YOUR BLACK ASS TO FREEEEDOOOOMMM'. this brought general laughter from both teams as we closed in to make the tackle. then the ref blows his whistle, and says 'there will definitely be none of that on my field' and orders them to turn over the ball to us. more general laughter ensues but this time only from our team, and its a lot harder. 3 tackles after the penalty and we score a try <insert more laughter here>
should probably note also that both players, whilst not african in decent were both very dark skinned moaris and not only that but they were in fact cousins too, there was no doubt in anyones mind (but the refs perhaps) that there was no racism there, but a controversial term none the less

[GIGS20]

OK, Never having played the tackle game myself I've only got one from touch (I think it's a beaut though)

Friday night social touch at Rocky Rugby club, generally the night starts off in the bar for most teams and finishes on the floor, so you can understand the level of coordination that is shown.
We were playing a quarter final for the 'Q' grade, late in the season, when us uncoordinated losers caught up with the Taffy bastards on the other side who had been playing golden oldies all season and we were matching them for once. I'd lined up in the center of the field, we were defending hard coz we were one try down and needed to hold them out early in the second half. Well this big mongrel of a loose forward (who thought he was a back) grabs the ball and starts running across field with the rest of the team switching behind him in the hopes of opening up a gap. it turns out that he's running at me, with a whippet-like kid (who I think is in a force development squad at the moment) slipping outside him, to make things a little more confusing.
Now I know our best defender is outside me, so I call the ball carrier as mine and line him up (this is touch remember so I keep my eyes on him, and don't have to get my feet set or anything)
He bolts in at warp five (or the 40 year old equivalent) and throws THE BIGGEST DUMMY you've ever seen to the guy on the outside.
I don't buy it, he's stepping (hopefully) inside me at this point and I'm matching him step for step, but it seems in this move, he (like a good loose forward) has gotten low and isn't watching me at all, because as he straightens, his head and my chin find themselves attempting to occupy the same point in space-time......they don't fit.
Anyhoo I'm about 80 kilos wringing wet, and this guy would've played at 100 (and hasn't played seriously for a few years) so I find myself about 8 metres back from the encounter flat on my back, shaking my head.
I get up and wander on over to see if the old fella's OK coz he's still lying there holding his head at which point I notice a hep of blood all over him. Well he's cut his head pretty bad and I ask him if he's OK, wiping my chin clean. Shit there's a lot of blood...shit there's a hole in my face. Apparently five stitches each filled everything in OK, but I've never heard of ten stiches being earned in a social touch game. The A&E staff thought we were pissed, (which we probably were a bit) because we kept on joking with each other about it.

That's the best I've got!

[frontrow]

Great stories fella, more please...C'mon everyone, contribute some yarns...
Blood stories, i have a few....I never had stitches in my life till i played rugby, now i have lost count....Blakehurst play Rockdale( local St George derby, very nasty stuff) playing at rockdales homeground, conveniently down the road from the local medical centre, which comes in handy after the start of the match, when i attempt to tackle one of the oppositions big lads, while at the same time our flanker hits him from the other side, with both of our heads swinging around and the resultant thud resonating through the whole ground, and the claret spewing all over the turf, as the skin from the top of my nose to the middle of my forehead relents to the forces applied to it by my mates chin, mouth and nose, which are also now a bloody mess....He broke his nose, i had ten stitches, at the aforementioned medical centre, then went back to the game and tried to go back on only to be denied by the coach...Probably a good thing too as the headache was just beginning to set in by then...
Moving forward several years and Rosalie park, once again conveniently located right next to Charlie Gardiner Hospital, playing my first trial game for Wanneroo (to see if i am good enough to play first grade for them) against my old club Wests...A lot of fun with plenty of "friendly" niggle from my old mates, with the general mood of the match excellent and friendly...As it was only a trial match everyone was still a bit short of match fitness so there was the odd missed tackle and soft tries to both teams. It was almost fulltime when the Wests boys passed the ball out the backline to a seagulling prop in the centres, so i followed the play and ended up facing off with him, one on one...He decides to run straight over me, and i oblidge him by getting into a crouch to make the tackle, then "Lights out"
"Why are you holding me on the ground mate?" were my first words back from the land of nod...He raised his hand from my forehead and it was totally covered in the red stuff, seems he had re opened my old battle scar from 5 years earlier, and added another 7 stitches on a ninety degree angle from the previous tear which once again needed 10 stitches....Now, Charlie Gardiner is over the road, so off we go to the changerooms and apply some rudimentary first aid to my forehead in the form of a triangular bandage, ala, pirate style, then proceed to the bar for the rudimentary speeches and Man of the match presentation, of which i was presented the mug...This being the case i proceeded to get pretty intoxicated, until someone pointed out that my headwound was now leaking quite heavily from the aforementioned Bandanna, and that it may be best if i headed off to the hospital to get stitched up, so off i trotted, in quite a jovial mood...
The staff at the hospital enjoyed having me telling jokes and one liners so much they triaged me quite quickly and i was back out at the clubrooms within two hours, a record i reckon for emergency room repairs...Alas though, the bar was closed and i had to ride my bike home, about 5kms...What a horrible hangover i had the next day...