No-one ever accused me of being a skilful rugby player.  Don’t get me wrong, I could catch, pass, even punt with a degree of accuracy.  But my contribution lay in other areas.  I was an unpleasant player.

I was never quick but relatively fit, so I played at loose forward, whose job it was to spoil the play of the opposition and ideally win the ball from any breakdown (preferably legally) and get it to the girls in the backs.

Sometimes I’d get caught one-on-one with a nippy winger sprinting round me or a fancy dan fly-half jinking inside me.  This might have upset less experienced team mates but I realized a match lasted for 80 minutes, which was ample time to settle the score.

I recall on one occasion their fly half, a real prima donna, had danced around and given us hell for 40 minutes.  But early in the second half he got tagged.  The ruck formed round him and it was too inviting not to stamp on his neck.   Naturally, I explained to the ref that I had been trying quite legally to rake the ball.

I think this gave the lad cause to ponder so hesitancy crept into his game, because five minutes later I got him again.

Now, I started off by saying that I wasn’t a skilful player but the precision with which I planted my studs a second time in exactly the same holes as the previous time bordered on art.  An unpleasant player, see?

He didn’t want the ball after that.