Introduction

“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, the full contact team sport that originated in England

in the 19th century, is followed by millions of avid fans the
world over.

Here is a collection of mostly comical quotes encapsulating

the humour of the sport and those who play and follow it.

www.crombiejardine.com
 ~A~
 

“Remember that rugby is a team game; all 14 of you make

sure you pass the ball to Jonah”

A fax to All Blacks before the 1995 World Cup semi-final

“Subdue and penetrate”

The All Blacks’ motto

“New Zealand rugby is a colourful game since you get all

black . . . and blue”

Anon

“Rugby is played by men with odd shaped balls”

Anon

“Rugby League is war without the frills”

Anon
 

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

Anon

 
 ~B~
 

“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

“Not many people in Batley speak Latin, so the first thing

we did was change the motto”

Stephen Ball

On taking over as Batley chairman

“Look what these bastards have done to Wales. They’ve

taken our coal, our water, our steel. They buy our houses
and they only live in them for a fortnight every 12 months.
What have they given us? Absolutely nothing. We’ve been
exploited, raped, controlled and punished by the English
and that’s who you are playing this afternoon”

Phil Bennett

The Welsh captain’s pre-game pep talk before facing

England, 1977
 

“If you can’t take a punch, you should play table tennis”

Pierre Berbizier The French coach’s answer to Scotland’s

accusations of French foul play, 1995

“My favourite sport at school was rugby. All sports are

teamwork, but rugby particularly is about teamwork and I
think teamwork is the essence of this”

Gordon Brown

‘That kick was absolutely unique, except for the one before
it which was identical”

Tony Brown

“Rugby is a wonderful show: dance, opera and, suddenly,

the blood of a killing”

Richard Burton
 
 ~C~
 

“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

Author and playwright

“I’m still an amateur, of course, but I became rugby’s first

millionaire five years ago”

David Campese

“If the game is run properly as a professional game, you do

not need 57 old farts running rugby”
Will Carling

“Do that again, son, and you will live up to your name”

Gareth Chilcott A warning to Dai Young in response to some

imaginative play from the Welsh player

“I’m just off for a quiet pint. Followed by fifteen noisy ones”

Gareth Chilcott

“I don’t know about us not having a Plan B when things

went wrong, we looked like we didn’t have a Plan A”

Geoff Cooke

On England being humbled by New Zealand in the World

Cup semi-final, 1995

“Playing rugby at school, I once fell on a loose ball and,

through ignorance and fear, held on despite a fierce
pummelling. After that it took me months to convince my
team-mates I was a coward”

Peter Cook
 

“The tactical difference between Association Football and

Rugby with its varieties seems to be that in the former, the
ball is the missile, in the latter, men are the missiles”

Alfred E. Crawley
 ~D~
 

“The main difference between playing League and Union is

that now I get my hangovers on Monday instead of Sunday”

Tom David

“We’ve lost seven of our last eight matches. The only team
that we’ve beaten was Western Samoa. Good job we didn’t
play the whole of Samoa”

Gareth Davies

“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 Commenting during A Question of Sport,

BBC TV, 1995

“I knew he would never play for Wales; he’s tone deaf”

Vemon Davies
On his son Huw’s decision to play for England

“The pub is as much a part of rugby as is the playing field”

John Dickenson
 ~E~
 

“Bloody typical, isn’t it? The car’s a write-off. The tanker’s a

write-off. But JPR comes out of it all in one piece”

Gareth Edwards On J.P.R. Williams’ involvement in a road

traffic accident

“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 block Phil Horrocks-Taylor

 ~F~
 

“What happens when a game of football is proposed at

Christmas among a party of your men assembled from
different schools? Alas! . . . The Eton man is enamoured of
his own rules, and turns up his nose at Rugby as not
sufficiently aristocratic, while the Rugbeian retorts that
‘bullying’ and ‘sneaking’ are not to his taste, and he is not
afraid of his shins, or of a ‘maul’ or ‘scrimmage’. On hearing
this the Harrovian pricks up his ears, and though he might
previously have sided with Rugby, the insinuation against
the courage of those who do not allow ‘shinning’ arouses his
ire, and causes him to refuse to lay with one who has
offered it. Thus it is found impossible to get up a game”

The Field, 1861

Considering how it was in the years before rugby and

football became distinctly separate sports

Peter John FitzSimons (Born Wahroonga, New South

Wales, Australia, 1961) A former rugby union player,
FitzSimons joined the Wallabies in 1984. He is an
Australian journalist, commentator and author. In
June 2011 he was named a Member of the Order of
Australia for his service to literature.

 
“Forwards are the gnarled and scarred creatures who have a
propensity for running into and bleeding all over each
other”

Peter FitzSimons

“Without a doubt the manliest men on the pitch. Large,

often hairy, beer swilling carnivores that can and will smash
anything in their path. Revelling in the violence inherent in
the scrum, they are rarely considered nice people, and in
fact to some they aren’t even considered humans at all.
Front rowers tolerate this attitude far and wide because they
recognise their role at the top of the food chain and are
used to suffering the fools that surround them. Accused by
some of simply being dumb, I prefer to think of this group as
open to unconventional ways of thinking”

Peter FitzSimons

“Rugby backs can be identified because they generally have

clean jerseys and identifiable partings in their hair . . .
come the revolution the backs will be the first to be lined up
against the wall and shot for living parasitically off the work
of others”

Peter FitzSimons

 
“Forwards are the gnarled and scarred creatures who have a
propensity for running into and bleeding all over each
other”

Peter FitzSimons
 ~G~
 

“A forward’s usefulness to his side varies as to the square of

his distance from the ball”

Clarrie Gibbons

“Tony Ward is the most important rugby player in Ireland.

His legs are far more important to his country than even
those of Marlene Dietrich were to the film industry. A little
hairier, maybe, but a pair of absolute winners”

C.M.H. Gibson

Wales v Ireland match programme, 1979

“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

 
“The women sit, getting colder and colder, on a seat getting
harder and harder, watching oafs getting muddier and
muddier”

Virginia Graham

Making reference to the ‘muddied oafs’ in Rudyard Kipling’s

poem ‘The Islanders’

“You’ve got to get your first tackle in early, even if it’s late”

Ray Gravell

“A game played by fewer than fifteen a side, at least half of

whom should be totally unfit”

Michael Green

“The first half is invariably much longer than the second.

This is partly because of the late kick-off but is also caused
by the unfitness of the referee”

Michael Green
‘The Art of Coarse Rugby’, 1960

 
 ~H~
 

“League is much, much more physical than Union, and

that’s before anyone starts breaking the rules”

Adrian Hadley

“There’s no doubt about it, he’s a big bastard”

Gavin Hastings

On Jonah Lomu

Austin Healey: “Are you nervous, Danny?”

Danny Hipkiss: “Well, I am a bit, Austin”

Austin Healey: “Well, you should be. Because you’re s**t”

Gordon Ross: “You’re not that good, are you, son?”

Austin Healey: “I don’t even know what your name is, mate”

“A major rugby tour by the British Isles to New Zealand is a

cross between a medieval crusade and a prep school
outing”

John Hopkins

“Me? As England’s answer to Jonah Lomu? Joanna Lumley,

more likely”

Damian Hopley
 ~I~
 
“The Holy Writ of Gloucester Rugby Club demands: first, that
the forwards shall win the ball; second, that the forwards
shall keep the ball; and third, that the backs shall buy the
beer”
Doug Ibbotson
 
 ~J~
“The one-handed palmer can always reach higher, they say.
They may be right, but the result is that nearly every line-
out is like a tropical island all waving palms”

Vivian Jenkins “I haven’t really read the papers, but if

they’re going to call you this superhuman rugby player or
whatever and you believe it, then you should also believe it
when they call you a tosser”

Martin Johnson
 ~K~
 

“You can go to the end of time, the last World Cup in the
history of mankind, and the All Blacks will be favourites for
it”

Phil Kearns

“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 players

 ~L~
 

“Beer and Rugby are more or less synonymous”

Chris Laidlaw

“Rugby may have many problems, but the gravest is

undoubtedly that of the persistence of summer”

Chris Laidlaw

“Rugby is not like tea, which is good only in England, with

English water and English milk. On the contrary, rugby
would be better, frankly, if it were made in a Twickenham
pot and warmed up in a Pyrenean cauldron”

Dennis LaLanne

“I’m 49, I’ve had a brain haemorrhage and a triple bypass

and I could still go out and play a reasonable game of rugby
union. But I wouldn’t last 30 seconds in rugby league”

Graham Lowe

 
 ~M~
 

“I can't really remember the names of the clubs that we

went to”

Chris Masoe

When asked if he had visited the Pyramids during his visit to

Egypt

“Sure there have been injuries and deaths in rugby, but

none of them serious”

Doc Mayhew

“I never comment on referees and I'm not going to break

the habit of a lifetime for that prat”

Ewan McKenzie

“They think we’re just a bunch of ignorant paddies from the

bog. Let’s not disappoint them”
Stewart McKinney

The Irish player’s advice to the team before going up

against England

“I’ve seen better centres in a box of Black Magic”

Joe McPartlin

Seeing his successors in the Oxford University backs

“This looks a good team on paper. Let’s see how it looks on

grass”

Nigel Mellville

Commenting on England’s new look against Australia, 1984

“The French are predictably unpredictable”

Andrew Mehrtens

After the All Blacks lost to the French in the 1999 Rugby
World Cup

Murray Graham Mexted

(Born Wellington, New Zealand, 1953)

A former New Zealand rugby union player. As All Blacks

Number 8, Mexted played in every All Blacks international
between 1979 and 1986, before becoming a renowned TV
commentator and rugby analyst for Sky TV. He is the
founder and managing director of the International Rugby
Academy, www.internationalrugbyacademy.com.

A Sky TV producer, conducting a sound check before the last

Springbok test at Carisbrook: “Murray can you hear me? . . .
Murray can you hear me?”

Murray: “No”

“Andy Ellis, the 21 year old, who turned 22 a few weeks

ago”

Murray Mexted

“Darryl Gibson has been quite magnificent coming inside

Andrew Mehrtens, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of
the same today”
Murray Mexted

“He's looking for some meaningful penetration into the

back-line”

Murray Mexted

“He scored that try after only 22 seconds, totally against the
run of play”

Murray Mexted

“I can tell you it's a magnificent sensation when the gap

opens up like that and you just burst right through”

Murray Mexted

“I don’t like these new rules because your first instinct when
you see a man on the ground is to go down on him”

Murray Mexted
 

“I just love it when Mehrtens comes on the inside of

Marshall”

Murray Mexted

“Isn't that an interesting scene, the two coaches, Nick

Mallett and John Hart. By Jove, times have changed haven't
they? In the old days they'd be punching each other in that
position”

Murray Mexted

Seeing the two former coaches of the South African and

New Zealand rugby teams sitting together in a grandstand

“I would not say he is the best left winger in the Super 14,
but there are none better”

Murray Mexted

On Rico Gear

“Paul Tito looked like a blind man in a brothel, just left

groping”
Murray Mexted

“Spencer's running across field calling out, 'Come inside me!

Come inside me!'”

Murray Mexted

“Strangely, in slow motion replay, the ball seemed to hang

in the air for even longer”

Murray Mexted

“There's a couple of Hores on display tonight”

Murray Mexted

On the brothers Charlie Hore (Highlanders) and Andrew Hore

(Hurricanes) playing on opposing teams

“There's nothing that a tight forward likes more than a

loosie right up his backside”

Murray Mexted
 

“Well it was a great kick. We know Matthew Cooper’s got

tremendous rhythm now. He’s smooth, smooth as a baby’s
bum… By Jove, that didn’t slip out did it?”

Murray Mexted

“You don’t like to see hookers going down on players like

that”

Murray Mexted

“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

Nobody ever beats Wales at rugby, they just score more

points”
Graham Mourie

 
 ~N~
 

“Mothers keep their photo on the mantelpiece to stop the

kids going too near the fire”

Jim Noilly On the Munster pack, BBC TV, 1995

“Colin has done a bit of mental arithmetic with a calculator”

Ma Nonu

“Don’t ask me about emotions in the Welsh dressing room.

I’m someone who cries when he watches ‘Little House on
the Prairie’”

Bob Norster
 ~O~
 

“Hit me! Look at me, I’m huge! How could you miss me?”

Paul O’Connell Towering at the front of a line-out, trying to

disconcert England thrower Steve Thompson

“If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the

same thing again”

Anton Oliver

“Colin Meads is the kind of player you expect to see

emerging from a ruck with the remains of a jockstrap
between his teeth”

Tom O’Reilly
 ~P~
 

“The Brent Spar with attitude. A figure who inspires hero

worship among even those who think a fly-half is a glass of
beer consumed when ’er indoors is looking the other way”

Robert Philip, Daily Telegraph On Jonah Lomu

“Who else but an Englishman could invent an oval ball?”

Peter Pook
 ~R~
 

“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

“England’s coach Jack Powell, an immensely successful

businessman, has the acerbic wit of Dorothy Parker and,
according to most New Zealanders, a similar knowledge of
rugby”

Mark Reason, Total Sport

“The job of Welsh coach is like a minor part in a Quentin

Tarantino film: you stagger on, you hallucinate, nobody
seems to understand a word you say, you throw up, you get
shot. Poor old Kevin Bowring has come up through the
coaching structure so he knows what it takes . . . 15 more
players than Wales have at present”

Mark Reason, Total Sport

“The winger resembles Mother Brown, running with a high

knee-lift and sometimes not progressing far from the spot
where he started”
Mark Reason, Total Sport On Simon Geoghegan

“The only hope for the England rugby union team is to play
it all for laughs. It would pack them in if the public address
system at Twickenham was turned up full blast to record the
laughs at every inept bit of passing, kicking or tackling. The
nation would be in fits . . . and on telly the BBC would not
need a commentator but just a tape of that Laughing
Policeman, turning it loud at the most hilarious bits”

Jim Rivers

Writing to The Guardian, 1979

“The whole point of rugby is that it is, first and foremost, a

state of mind, a spirit”

Jean-Pierre Rives

“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

“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

“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

On biting Sean Fitzpatrick’s ear

 ~S~
“Anyone who doesn’t watch rugby league is not a real
person. He’s a cow’s hoof, an ethnic or comes from
Melbourne”

John Singleton “The French selectors never do anything by

halves; for the first international of the season against
Ireland they dropped half the three-quarter line”

Nigel Starmer-Smith, BBC TV, 1974

 ~T~
 

“I prefer rugby to soccer. I enjoy the violence in rugby,

except when they start biting each other’s ears off”

Elizabeth Taylor

“Rugby is great. The players don’t wear helmets or padding;

they just beat the living daylights out of each other and
then go for a beer. I love that”

Joe Theismann

“I wanted a play that would paint the full face of sensuality,

rebellion and revivalism. In South Wales these three
phenomena have played second fiddle only to the Rugby
Union which is a distillation of all three”

Gwyn Thomas

 
 ~U~
 
“I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and
father”
Tana Umaga
 
 ~V~
 
“I asked a ref if he could give me a technical foul for
thinking bad things about him. He said, of course not. I said,
well, I think you stink. And he gave me a technical. You can’t
trust ‘em”
Jim Valvano
 
 ~W~
 

“I didn’t know what was going on at the start, in the swirling

wind. The flags were all pointing in different directions and I
thought the Irish had starched them just to fool us”

Mike Watkins

On playing for Wales at Lansdowne Road, Dublin

“In south west Lancashire, babes don’t toddle, they

sidestep. Queuing women talk of ‘nipping round the
blindside’. Rugby league provides our cultural adrenalin. It’s
a physical manifestation of our rules of life, comradeship,
honest endeavour and a staunch, often ponderous,
allegiance to fair play”

Colin Welland

“Rugby is a good occasion for keeping thirty bullies far from

the centre of the city”

Oscar Wilde

 
“I like to think I play rugby as it should be played. There are
no yellow or red cards in my collection but I cannot say I’m
an angel”

Jonny Wilkinson

“No leadership, no ideas. Not even enough imagination to

thump someone in the lineup when the ref wasn’t looking”

J.P.R. Williams On Wales losing to Australia

“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 relationship between the Welsh and the English is

based on trust and understanding. They don’t trust us and
we don’t understand them”

Dudley Wood
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