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It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
I have a natural antipathy towards rugby which probably can be traced back to being forced to play the game despite being a timid '7-stone weakling' at my old school. Football was (is) my game but it was considered rather too working-class for our school apparently.
It never ceases to amaze me that, whilst the rest of modern society is bombarded with restrictive health and safety rules to avoid human injury, gorilla-like men with necks wider than their heads are permitted to knock lumps out of each other at rugby games cheered on by screaming, beer-swilling men and women. mostly of the middle-class. Savage, and to the gentlemen and ladies of all classes who follow proper football, quite incomprehensible.
Last night I thought I would give rugby another try in an ultimately vain attempt to rid myself of my anti-rugby bias. Alas, there was simply no Damascus-like conversion, indeed it simply confirmed my wholly negative view of this hooligan 'game'.
Furthermore, even our pet-dog fled from the TV room, seemingly terror-struck at what he had just witnessed, poor thing.
our pet-dog fled from the TV room, seemingly terror-struck at what he had just witnessed, poor thing.
Your reaction to the match, you mean?
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
My father was a rugby player (Bristol and Gloucestershire) so I was taken to 'Varsity' and international matches. I haven't bothered much since, but there is a YouTube video (or was) called something like 'The Best Tries Ever' which is absolutely breath-taking. (Not interested in who's playing, or who wins :-P)
It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.
My father was a rugby player (Bristol and Gloucestershire) so I was taken to 'Varsity' and international matches. I haven't bothered much since, but there is a YouTube video (or was) called something like 'The Best Tries Ever' which is absolutely breath-taking. (Not interested in who's playing, or who wins :-P)
Here it is. Gareth Edwards of course. Somehow it all looks very different to today's rugby - the players of normal dimensions for a start.
Here it is. Gareth Edwards of course. Somehow it all looks very different to today's rugby - the players of normal dimensions for a start.
Probably was that one, and I feel like saying:
"I know. Because I was there."
Except I certainly wasn't. But JPR, Gareth Edwards, Phil Bennett and (I think) the ill-fated Mervyn Davies: that was the era when I was taken to Twickenham. Barry John?
It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.
ff....That must have been (ref Bris RFC) at the time of John Colston, John Blake, David Ellery, John Broad (my uncle), John Pullin, David Rollitt all circa the early 60's....
Haskell had a hell of a game (dynamic)....not so sure about Ford (needs to get up to speed....he only 21)....Eng line speed in defence superb....whether it is a one off we will see soon, They have been capable of such a display for some time under Lancaster, but yesterday got the balance between offence and defence right....Watson and joseph brilliant additions + after first ten minutes of chaos everything went their way inc luck and lottery of referee calls (which is rare)....
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