Written by The last fight-related post dealt with rugby league. This one casts a critical eye over the similar game of rugby union. As we mentioned before the minor rule differences make a significantly different game but if I was being simplistic I’d also say that union is for the private (public school in the UK) school boys and league isn’t – union’s a bit posher.
They’re are all still big lads though and all up for a fight and I may be proved wrong in the future but these two codes will surely stay at the top of the Hardest Sportsman rankings for the duration.
Firstly to France then and those who doubt the ability of the French in a dust-up should take a look at this – it looks to me like a South Pacific team playing a French league side. An necessary first blow (highlighted in the replay) leads to a huge battle, with some unsavoury punching while on the ground and even what looks like some crown involvement:
The big teams now and this is a slightly dated England vs Australia match and back then you could just about get away with some of the ‘infringements’ on show here. Not any more though:
On to some serious stuff now and the legendary ’99′ call used by the British Lions (an amalgam of all the British teams) on one of their tours in South Africa. The South Africans are notoriously dirty players and occasionally other teams have to formulate their own response. The 99 call was the devastating answer – when the captain shouted it, everyone would hit the nearest opposing player. The most notable game was this effort from 1974 with a very disapproving commentator:
…..and one more just to prove that the second tier of rugby nations are quite capable of getting involved, check out this mammoth free for all in a Romanian club match:
