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Joined June 2019
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As Harry noted in an earlier comment this is certainly a tight forward sight (and long may it remain so!). My rugby journey started at 5 and ended at 3, and I always felt funny scrumming on the other side be it at 1 or at 4.
Like a few here, I missed out on school rugby and despite being a fane from the 91 world cup onwards, I only got into rugby as I entered the workforce – working in mining meant that I had 4 clubs in 6 years, with a 2 year spell in the middle of that ‘playing’ on the 10s party circuit in SE Asia. Rugby was a great way to make instant mates (just add beer) wherever my career took me in my 20s.
I started off in subbies rugby in the Filthy 4s, being chucked in off the bench to have a crack in the pigs and learn the game. From fat-arsed Yorkshire stock, I was never going to make it in the back row, and my natural gifts (just one, height) saw me find a home in the second row on the next 2 stops on my rugby journey.
I turned up to play rugby at my local (180km round trip) rugby club in Caentral Qld a couple if years later and was a bit slow in grabbing jumpers and ended up with 15 in my back. The farm boys and the underground miners had on their minds the commitment of legal assault on the opposition and their were fights in the dressing room over the 8 and 2 jerseys. I knew that putting me in the backs was a terrible accident, but figured I may as well fake it til you make it: clean pair of shorts, gel in the hair, popped collar, pulled my socks up. I easily fielded the first kick into the no man’s land between half way and the 22, figuring I was just catching a kick off but in open play, and got amongst it in traffic driving into the forward pack and resetting the ball. Let’s just say that was the last highlight of that 15 min spell and the last time I ever played in a number greater than 8.
Later that season I did the Kokoda trail and came back 10kgs lighter, and wonder of wonders I could make it first to breakdowns and make a peat of myself. By this time though there was no chance I was going to be given a number greater than 5, no matter how much weight I lost. Great season of footy, we lost every game except one and still made the semis (the wonders of 5 team country comps).
Another move, another mining town, with the local rugby club being ever so slightly closer (150km round trip). We played in a more serious comp, I was struggling to get to training and struggling getting off the bench as we were finals bound and had one of the strongest packs going around. Half way through the season the tight head got injured / sick / hungover and we needed an emergency to fill in. As the bench, non-jumping, built-for-comfort lock, I was the obvious candidate. The 2hr bus trip was an opportunity for the eat of the pack – who had a clear self interest – make their best efforts to persuade me to take one for the team. Wanting to be a good team man, I agreed, was given a crash course in what to do (and what not to do) and was told that I needed to lie to the ref about my experience playing prop (as a safety conscious ref might ask us to play uncontested scrums). So far so good, and I might have stumbled through that game without learning anything or making an impact if it wasn’t for our captain. A stumpy Kiwi, as wide as he was tall, and built of granite, he had played pro rugby league for Cronulla in the 80s, but his real love was rugby. Leading the pack from hooker, and desperate to win the scrum battle against the strongest pack in town, he started sledging the Maori gentleman in the opposition front row. Over the next 80 mins my vocabulary was extended considerably at every scrum, as my neck and back were compressed in equal measure, the gist of the conversation being that they should be embarrassed and ashamed that a young lad like myself, in his first game at prop, was giving it to them. There was a measure of genius, and more than a measure of madness in my skips cunning plan: by throwing me in the deep end so completely, I was either going to step up to the mark and help him win the scrum battle or I was going to give up, and either way he was going to know what he needed to know in the first 10 mins. We won the scrums, won the game, made the GF and I basically never played another position except prop for the rest of my career!
Liking beer, playing TH prop meant that I was either playing the most important or 2md most important position in the team without being burdened by concepts like “training” or “fitness”. It also extended my career almost into my 40s and meant that I had an absolute ball captaining country rugby teams to losing seasons or playing 5th grade in subbies, or occasionally being asked by a mate coaching a higher grade team to put down my beer and play 80mins as a ruck inspector, as long as I held his scrum together. Some cracking times, some great mates, and a life long lesson that I with the right motivation (a scary Kiwi yelling swear words in my ear) I can achieve things I otherwise thought were impossible.
TLDR; 6, 4, 5, 3, 1, 3
'We all end up as props': A rugby memoir