Rugby Team Quotes

Never let the terms of masculinity be dictated by someone who thinks it's bound up with sexuality. If you really want to know something about what it means to be a man, just ask Gareth Thomas, who stood up in a locker room and told his teammates on the Welsh national rugby team that he was gay. I might not know much about much in this world, but I know for damn sure that no one in that locker room was more of a man at that moment than he was.

(Orthopaedics is basically reserved for the med school’s rugby team – it’s barely more than sawing and nailing – and I suspect they don’t ‘sign up’ for it so much as dip their hand in ink and provide a palm print.)

The night in question, I had put aside my perpetual lavatory read, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, because of all the manuscripts (inedible green tomatoes) submitted to Cavendish-Redux, my new stable of champions. I suppose it was about eleven o'clock when I heard my front door being interfered with. Skinhead munchkins mug-or-treating? Cherry knockers? The wind? Next thing I knew, the door flew in off its ruddy hinges! I was thinking al-Queda, I was thinking ball lightning, but no. Down the hallway tramped what seemed like an entire rugby team, though the intruders numbered only three. (You'll notice, I am always attacked in threes.) "Timothy," pronounced the gargoyliest, "Cavendish, I presume. Caught with your cacks down." "My business hours are eleven to two, gentlemen," Bogart would have said, "with a three-hour break for lunch. Kindly leave." All I could do was blurt, "Oy! My door! My ruddy door!

Look at the Wikipedia entry for any famous doctor, and you’ll see: ‘He proved himself an accomplished rugby player in youth leagues. He excelled as a distance runner and in his final year at school was vice-captain of the athletics team.’ This particular description is of a certain Dr H. Shipman, so perhaps it’s not a rock-solid system.

A truly enlightened attitude to language should simply be to let six thousand or more flowers bloom. Subcultures should be allowed to thrive, not just because it is wrong to squash them, because they enrich the wider culture. Just as Black English has left its mark on standard English Culture, South Africans take pride in the marks of Afrikaans and African languages on their vocabulary and syntax. New Zealand's rugby team chants in Maori, dancing a traditional dance, before matches. French kids flirt with rebellion by using verlan, a slang that reverses words' sounds or syllables (so femmes becomes meuf). Argentines glory in lunfardo, an argot developed from the underworld a centyry ago that makes Argentine Spanish unique still today. The nonstandard greeting "Where y'at?" for "How are you?" is so common among certain whites in New Orleans that they bear their difference with pride, calling themselves Yats. And that's how it should be.

The best nicknames that I have ever come across: -Dai Young (ex-Wales rugby prop, current coach of Wasps) –‘Only the Good’. -Billy Twelvetrees (England rugby centre) –‘36'. - Martin Offiah (ex-rugby league legend)–‘Chariots’ - Nia Wales (ex-work colleague) –‘Chester’ - Fitz Hall (QPR defender) –‘One size’ -David Jones (lower league rugby player who had half an ear bitten off) –‘Dai 18 months’ - The New Zealand junior rugby team -the small blacks -The New Zealand basketball team -the tall blacks

Here we’ll describe four signs that you have to disengage from your autonomous efforts and seek connection. Each of these emotions is a different form of hunger for connection—that is, they’re all different ways of feeling lonely: When you have been gaslit. When you’re asking yourself, “Am I crazy, or is there something completely unacceptable happening right now?” turn to someone who can relate; let them give you the reality check that yes, the gaslights are flickering. When you feel “not enough.” No individual can meet all the needs of the world. Humans are not built to do big things alone. We are built to do them together. When you experience the empty-handed feeling that you are just one person, unable to meet all the demands the world makes on you, helpless in the face of the endless, yawning need you see around you, recognize that emotion for what it is: a form of loneliness. ... When you’re sad. In the animated film Inside Out, the emotions in the head of a tween girl, Riley, struggle to cope with the exigencies of growing up.... When you are boiling with rage. Rage has a special place in women’s lives and a special role in the Bubble of Love. More, even, than sadness, many of us have been taught to swallow our rage, hide it even from ourselves. We have been taught to fear rage—our own, as well as others’—because its power can be used as a weapon. Can be. A chef’s knife can be used as a weapon. And it can help you prepare a feast. It’s all in how you use it. We don’t want to hurt anyone, and rage is indeed very, very powerful. Bring your rage into the Bubble with your loved ones’ permission, and complete the stress response cycle with them. If your Bubble is a rugby team, you can leverage your rage in a match or practice. If your Bubble is a knitting circle, you might need to get creative. Use your body. Jump up and down, get noisy, release all that energy, share it with others. “Yes!” say the people in your Bubble. “That was some bullshit you dealt with!” Rage gives you strength and energy and the urge to fight, and sharing that energy in the Bubble changes it from something potentially dangerous to something safe and potentially transformative.

You Are Not Your Jersey “Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.” - Colin Powell The New Zealand All Blacks (national rugby team) have a mantra: “Leave the jersey in a better place”. It means, this is not your jersey, you are part of something bigger but do your best while you wear the jersey. It provides a valuable lesson about enjoying your moment in the sun but letting go to pursue another one once your time ends. When I played in Toulouse they had the same mindset. The club only contracted a certain number of players each year and there was a set number of locker spaces. Each locker was numbered in such a way that was not associated with a jersey number and that was also the number you wore on your club sportswear. Some numbers were 00, others were 85 and mine was 71. When I joined the coach explained to me in French that this was not my number, but I was part of a tradition that spanned decades. My interpretation still remains, “You are not your jersey.

I remember, for example, the time at prep school when I was chosen for the under nines’ rugby team. Well, to be more accurate, I was chosen to be linesman, as I wasn’t good enough for the actual team. Anyway, it was a cold, miserable winter’s day, and there were no spectators out watching, which was uncommon. (Normally, at least a few boys or teachers would come out to watch the school matches.) But on this cold, blustery day the touchlines were deserted, except for one lone figure. It was my dad, standing in the rain, watching me, his son, perform my linesman duties. I felt so happy to see him, but also felt guilty. I mean, I hadn’t even made the team and here he was to watch me run up and down waving a silly flag. Yet it meant the world to me. When the halftime whistle blew it was my big moment. On I ran to the pitch, the plate of oranges in my hands, with Dad applauding from the touchline. Lives are made in such moments. Likewise, I remember Dad playing in the fathers-and-sons cricket match. All the other fathers were taking it very seriously, and then there was Dad in an old African safari hat, coming in to bat and tripping over his wicked--out for a duck. I loved that fun side of Dad, and everyone else seemed to love him for it as well. To be a part of that always made me smile.

I bet the house in Islington didn’t hurt either, I didn’t say. The loaded dad. I don’t dare rib him about it—people get weird talking about money. But if there’s one thing Will has always liked, maybe even more than the ladies, it’s money. Maybe it’s a thing from childhood, never having quite as much as anyone else at our school. I get that. He was there because his dad was headmaster, while I got in on a sports scholarship. My family aren’t posh at all. I was spotted playing rugby at a school tournament in Croydon when I was eleven and they approached my dad. That sort of thing actually happened at Trevs: it was that important to them to field a good team.

something that cannot be memorized and graded: a great doctor must have a huge heart and a distended aorta through which pumps a vast lake of compassion and human kindness. At least, that’s what you’d think. In reality, medical schools don’t give the shiniest shit about any of that. They don’t even check you’re OK with the sight of blood. Instead, they fixate on extracurricular activities. Their ideal student is captain of two sports teams, the county swimming champion, leader of the youth orchestra and editor of the school newspaper. It’s basically a Miss Congeniality contest without the sash. Look at the Wikipedia entry for any famous doctor, and you’ll see: ‘He proved himself an accomplished rugby player in youth leagues. He excelled as a distance runner and in his final year at school was vice-captain of the athletics team.’ This particular description is of a certain Dr H. Shipman, so perhaps it’s not a rock-solid system.

So, fast forward from Cardiff 1997 to Auckland 2011, from a Rugby World Cup quarter-final to a World Cup final, from a team heading towards defeat to a team heading towards victory. It’s the same two sides playing: New Zealand vs. France. It’s just as tight, but this time New Zealand lead by one point. Read the body language. Richie McCaw breathes, holds his wrist, stamps his feet – reconnecting with himself, returning to the moment. He looks around. There are no glazed eyes now. No walking dead. Brad Thorne throws water over himself, cooling his thoughts. Kieran Read stares out to the far distant edge of the stadium, regaining perspective. New Zealand, the stadium of four million people, is less calm. The dread casts a long black cloud. The spectators can’t help but flash back to the bad pictures. They are in the Red, but the All Blacks stay in the Blue. The clock counts itself down, slowly, slowly; until finally . . . the whistle blows. 8-7 New Zealand. ‘We smashed ’em,’ says Graham Henry. And in their heads, they did.

Trash first. Then supplies. Stepping forward, I kicked a pile of takeout containers to one side, wanting to clear a path to the cabinets so I could look for latex gloves. But then I stopped, stiffening, an odd scratching sound coming from the pile I’d just nudged with my foot. Turning back to it, I crouched on the ground and lifted a greasy paper at the top of the mess. And that’s when I saw it. A cockroach. In Ireland. A giant behemoth of a bug, the likes I’d only ever seen on nature programs about prehistoric insects. Okay, perhaps I was overexaggerating its size. Perhaps not. Honestly, I didn’t get a chance to dwell on the matter, because the roach-shaped locust of Satan hopped onto my hand. I screamed. Obviously. Jumping back and swatting at my hand, I screamed again. But evil incarnate had somehow crawled up and into the sleeve of my shirt. The sensation of its tiny, hairy legs skittering along my arm had me screaming a third time and I whipped off my shirt, tossing it to the other side of the room as though it was on fire. “What the hell is going on?” I spun toward the door, finding Ronan Fitzpatrick and Bryan Leech hovering at the entrance, their eyes darting around the room as though they were searching for a perpetrator. Meanwhile, I was frantically brushing my hands over my arms and torso. I felt the echo of that spawn of the devil’s touch all over my body. “Cockroach!” I screeched. “Do you see it? Is it still on me?” I twisted back and forth, searching. Bryan and Ronan were joined in the doorway by more team members, but I barely saw them in my panic. God, I could still feel it. I. Could. Still. Feel. It. Now I knew what those hapless women felt like in horror movies when they realized the serial killer was still inside the house.

De Villiers was shortlisted for the South African national hockey squad,’ the article says. True or false? False. In truth, I played hockey for one year at high school and was a member of the Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool Under-16A team that beat our near neighbours and rivals at Pretoria Boys’ High for the first time, but I was never shortlisted for the national hockey squad, or ever came remotely close to that level. ‘De Villiers was shortlisted for the South African national football squad,’ the article says. True or false? False. I have never played any organised football (soccer). We used to kick a ball around during break at school and the game has become part of the Proteas’ warm-up routine. That is all. ‘De Villiers was the captain of South Africa junior rugby,’ the article says. True or false? False. I played rugby at primary school and high school, and enjoyed every minute, but I never represented South Africa at any level, either at SA Schools or SA Under-20, and was never captain. ‘De Villiers is still the holder of six national school swimming records,’ the article says. True or false? False. As far as I recall, I did set an Under-9 breaststroke record at Warmbaths Primary School but I have never held any national school swimming records, not even for a day. ‘De Villiers has the record fastest 100 metres time among South African junior sprinters,’ the article says. True or false? False. I did not sprint at all at school. Elsewhere on the Internet, to my embarrassment, there are articles in which the great sprinter Usain Bolt is asked which cricketer could beat him in a sprint and he replies ‘AB de Villiers’. Maybe, just maybe, I would beat him if I were riding a motorbike. ‘De Villiers was a member of the national junior Davis Cup tennis team,’ the article says. True or false? Almost true. As far as I know, there was no such entity as the national junior Davis Cup team, but I did play tennis as a youngster, loved the game and was occasionally ranked as the national No. 1 in my age group. ‘De Villiers was a national Under-19 badminton

It was all about as encouraging as the sight of an approaching enema-trolley with a squeaky wheel and being pushed by a trainee nurse called Gertrude Shovenhose whose ears had been cauliflowered by years spent as a prop-forward in the hospital’s rugby team.

Scotland head coach Vern Cotter, said: "There's a lot of excitement within the team leading into this Test. "There are players who are going to earn their first cap for Scotland, and there are those who see this as a chance to stake a claim for the Rugby World Cup squad in 2015, as there are only a certain number of opportunities remaining for players to express and prove themselves.

Through several hours of revelry, I somehow got the idea that I could keep up with an English journalist. (Put English and journalist together and you get a liver as powerful as a nuclear reactor.) Cary was his usual moderate self, but I plowed along with Roddy, and I got as drunk as a rugby team after a tournament win.

Ronan was—if the papers were to be believed—the best hooker to come out of Ireland maybe ever. And by “hooker,” I don’t mean prostitute. Hooker is a position—a very pivotal position—on the rugby field. Based on my quick research, it appeared to be the rugby equivalent of an American football team’s quarterback.

It was too embarrassing to admit that a young woman was the most popular politician in the Islamic Republic. In the official tally she came in second, with slightly fewer votes than the older cleric—an injustice that must have riled Hashemi, given the nature of her platform. Hashemi had made her debut in politics by challenging conservative clerics who opposed women’s right to exercise in public. Using her standing as Rafsanjani’s daughter, she argued that there was nothing wrong with fully covered women exercising. An increasing number of old and young women already crowded parks to jog or play volleyball or badminton. But the Basij often harassed and intimidated them to discourage women from exercising. As part of her campaign to defend and expand women’s right to exercise, Hashemi built a bike path for women, increased women’s access to sports facilities such as golf courses and tennis courts, and set up the first women’s soccer and, eventually, rugby teams since the revolution. She also founded the Islamic Women’s Sport Foundation, through which she held games in Tehran involving Iranian athletes and Muslim women invited from other countries.

One of Henry’s toughest jobs when he arrived in the post was trying to eradicate the All Black’s inherent binge drinking culture. Previous All Black regimes had never challenged the idea of professional athletes knocking back the pop. For coaches and players who emerged through the amateur era it was hard to change the mindset. Booze had been an integral part of the culture in that period. There were no body fat tests or other high tech assessments of this, that and the other back then. As amateurs it was their right to have a few beers – that was kind of the point of playing. Rugby has never been just about what happens on the field. The camaraderie has always extended into the bar and a rugby team that hadn’t drunk together was not a team.

Line-out: a rugby term. After the ball goes into touch (out of bounds), players from both teams

Likewise, by expanding the size of their formation as far as the terrain and visibility would allow whenever they were out of actual contact with the enemy, they increased the likelihood that when they did make contact, the flanks of their formation would be wider than the enemy’s position. Like a rugby team playing a running game, their entire approach—the tempo and flow of the way they moved and fought—was designed around creating and exploiting a series of these overlaps.

We work with freelance, self-employed, micro and small businesses and offer an experienced accounting and bookkeeping service at a sensible price. The team collectively have a wide range of experience working with businesses from all sectors, ages and sizes, from self employed individuals to much larger corporate businesses and organizations. This experience and the knowledge we have gained is a real advantage and of great benefit to our clients.

One day, when I was messing around with a rugby ball, drop-kicking it over the posts, a teacher noticed me and suggested I play scrumhalf. He said I was a good kicker and that they needed somebody on the team. He told me to be at the next practice, but I never pitched up. I was just too scared; those guys were enormous. Of course, the teacher was angry and reported me to the head of rugby. I was called in and threatened with a disciplinary hearing. All boys had to play rugby.

It could produce the most extraordinary consequences, as the life of C. B. Fry demonstrates. The son of a chief accountant at Scotland Yard, he had played in the FA Cup before he left Repton School in 1890 and appeared for Surrey county cricket team in the time between school and university (Oxford, inevitably, and the top scholarship at Wadham College). By the time of his graduation, he had represented the university at cricket, soccer and athletics, tied the world long-jump record at 23 feet 6½ inches, and only missed playing wing three-quarter for the Oxford rugby team because of injury. He managed, in passing, to win a first in classics.

Example 6. (T: Male teacher in his early thirties. B1 and B2 are boys about 13 years old.) B1: Are the Chinese still fighting? T: No, why? B1: So why are you always talking about 统一? unite B2: It’s about Taiwan and China. They are two countries, and they want to be united. T: No. 不是两个国家。台湾是中国的一部分。 Not two countries. Taiwan is part of China. B2: No, they are not. T: They are. B2: They are not. In the Olympics, there were separate teams. I saw it. T: It’s like Scotland or Northern Ireland. 都是英国, 但是世界杯 football 还有rugby也 是分开的了。 All part of the UK. But for the World Cup football and rugby, they can be separately represented. B1: Scotland is a different country. T: No it is not. B2: It is. XXX (a girl in the class) is from Scotland. She was born in … where were you born again? B1: Dundee. T: 但它是统一的了。不是两个国家. The UNITED Kingdom 知不知道?! But it is united. Not two separate countries. The United Kingdom, don’t you understand?!

Probably just as well. Maybe with all that testosterone walking out the door, the insane urge to hump Lincoln Quinn’s leg would walk right out as well. Because that was exactly how she felt every time she looked at him. Like she was in heat. Within minutes, the restaurant had emptied out to only a few non-team wedding guests. Her nemesis was nowhere to be seen, and Em congratulated herself on her self-control as she eased off the bar stool. Embarrassing leg-humping avoided—bravo!

And did I mention how much chicks dig guys with dogs? Go out with Tiny and they’ll flock.” “Val...” Ryder shoved a hand through his hair. “I play in one of the country’s most elite rugby teams. I’m on the tele. And billboards. In my underwear. I do okay with the chicks.

Japan’s devotion to work ethic in their corporate and labour culture was mirrored in their rugby. When they beat us, hard work beat talent because talent didn’t work hard enough. And for that, I take full responsibility. As Springbok head coach, it was up to me to demand more time to prepare the team for the World Cup, but I just didn’t bargain hard enough.

The chances of winning the Super Rugby competition are slim if you don’t at least play a home semi-final. Of the 22 semi-finals between 1996 and 2006, a visiting side won only five times. Of the eleven finals, the home team had been victorious on eight occasions. The exception to the rule was the Crusaders, who claimed their title in 1998, 1999 and 2000 as visiting finalists.

Walsh knew,’ Stuart Lancaster, the current England rugby coach, told rugby writer Mark Reason, ‘that if you established a culture higher than that of your opposition, you would win. So rather than obsessing about the results, you focus on the team.

Walsh knew,’ Stuart Lancaster, the current England rugby coach, told rugby writer Mark Reason, ‘that if you established a culture higher than that of your opposition, you would win. So rather than obsessing about the results, you focus on the team.’ ‘The challenge of every team is to build a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another,’ said Vince Lombardi. ‘Because the question is usually not how well each person performs, but how well they work together.’ Collective character is vital to success. Focus on getting the culture right; the results will follow.

only took that Peruvian rugby team that crashed in the Andes in the early 1970s nine days without food before they were so desperate with hunger they resorted to eating the dead bodies of their friends to survive.

The only way shame is harmful is when it is irredeemable. Not measuring up but having the chance to improve or change is life affirming, being placed in an endless loop of not being good enough is life crushing. There is great despair in feeling like you will never measure up. The hope of measuring up is how life spurs us into growth. That is life’s intention; like two rugby teams, our grandeur should push up against our shame and maintain the pressure, claiming more and more ground, until it reaches the goal - or until we accept and make peace with our limitations.

Legend has it that the South Sydney Rugby League team acquired their ‘Rabbitohs’ nickname because, in the late 1920s, several players worked in the trade on Saturday mornings, later taking the field in their bloodied jerseys.

There’s no yielding to status in a rugby tackle, there’s no privilege in a scrum.

In my first or second year I was made to play rugby for the school team. God knows why. Something to do with the first team being off in France. Maybe I was the only boy with two legs available. I don’t know. Either way, I got forced to play rugby, and what I remember most about that experience is the misery. I turned up knowing nothing about the rules (and years and years later, I still know nothing about the rules of rugby), took one look at what was happening on the pitch and thought, You have got to be kidding. Our opponents all had beards. We were twelve, and although I was reasonably tall, I was a proper skinny kid, and not at all built for scrums

While modern women take charge in the boardroom or form their own rugby teams, none have yet demanded acceptance in the world of trainspotting.

He was the captain of the rugby team and he was built like a fucking gorilla. He had the personality of a fucking gorilla, too.

DNA sequencing of fecal samples from players in an international rugby union team showed considerably greater diversity of gut bacteria than samples from people who are more sedentary.

The union team of New Zealand's national sport of Rugby has incorporated the static posture of the Haka war dance into its symbols. That symbol of the sprawling arms and legs is similar to that of the Dogon's Kanaga mask which I trace back to Egypt; it resembles the Ka signaling the beginning of the solar and/or lunar cycle based on the Egyptian theology when Osiris proceeds from the Great Pyramid (which is the House of Ka) into the Duat.