Cauliflower ears and headbands - Memorable Forwards

Even after fifty years of watching rugby, the world of the pack remains a mystery to me. As a youngster I would gawp in bewilderment as sixteen enormous hairy cauliflower-eared blokes meshed together in a scrum, made crunching tackles, launched unsubtle haymakers or just trampled over each other in the mud. They may not, with a few exceptions, be as hairy these days. The kit is tighter and the players fitter, but the riddle rumbles on like a permanently rolling maul.

The front three offer the greatest enigma. At least Max Boyce created celebrities of Graham Price, Bobby Windsor and Charlie Faulkner in the mid-Seventies in his celebratory song “The Pontypool Front Row”. I’m not sure which has a tight head, and which is loose, but the props look the scariest of all. I guess that goes with the job, as does immense strength, given the dangerous physical pressures the have to withstand in the scrum’s engine room.

From Fran Cotton to John Hayes and Dan Cole, these giants have thundered around pitches over the top yet under the radar. I can’t honestly say I’ve had favourites, although I had a soft spot for the shaggy Italian Martin Castrogiovanni. Perhaps the most memorable of all were the equally shaggy-haired pair of Welsh props straight out of central casting. One was blonde, one dark, but each had a striking mass of permed curls more commonly spotted on four legs adorning Welsh hillsides. I doubt they ever visited the barber's to cut their hair; the local shearer would be more appropriate. The media labelled them the ‘Hair Bears’. In my household they were affectionately dubbed the ‘Sheepies’. I’m referring, of course, to Duncan and Adam Jones.

In between the props crouches the hooker. With scrums taking so long nowadays the Number 2 shirt is rarely spotted, as elusive as a Siberian wader on the Norfolk marshes. With wonky put-ins apparently accepted by refs, they no longer have a ball to hook so presumably all they have left in the setpiece is to bite the opposition’s ears off. Not even Brian Moore at his most effusive on the commentary box dares to reveal all the secrets: I guess what goes on in the scrum stays in the scrum. Luckily they are occasionally allowed out, blinking in the daylight, to throw the ball to the lineout jumpers, an increasingly specialist skill. 

The second-rowers are just props stretched out on the rack. They also seem to enjoy a penchant for the bandage headband look (e.g. England’s Bill Beaumont) or scrappy rags fluttering from the ears (Alan Wyn Jones) as they stride around the pitch a few inches taller than anyone else. Before lifting became legal, the numbers four and five used to dominate lineouts purely because they could simply reach higher than their fellow forwards. When I think of the lock forward, the likes of Gordon Brown (no, not the Prime Minister!), his Scottish 6 foot 10 successor Richie Gray, Moss Keane and Donncha O’Callaghan spring to mind, along with the ‘Toulouse Lighthouse’ Fabien Pelous or South Africa’s Victor Matfield.

Then there was Alan Martin of Aberavon and Wales. Draped in a loose red shirt the size of a superking sheet, he would often be the lineout target man who ‘palmed’ the ball back to Gareth Edwards. However, he didn’t win a shedload of caps so his place in my memory bank owes more to his value as a distance penalty-taker. If the kick was beyond the range of Edwards, Bennett, Fenwick or JPR, it was Martin’s job to heel out a mud pie on which to set the ball barely angled above horizontal, then give it an almighty toe-poke punt. Raw, rough and ready, perhaps, but surprisingly effective.

I suppose the back three are the glory boys of the pack. The flankers are the ones with the strength and pace while the mighty Number Eights hold it all together at the back, always in tune with the scrum-half with regard to the agreed ‘plays’. Back in the Seventies, there were great exponents like Tony Neary, Fergus Slattery and Jean-Pierre Rives. The French skipper, together with his number eight Bastiat, was a nasty so-and-so who had a dreadful reputation for the rough stuff, even in the era when blind eyes were normally turned from brazen violence on the rugby pitch. I always admired the French way of playing but it was hard to love what Rives and his pack were doing.

A generation later, France boasted the likes of Serge Betsen and the cool-as-a-cucumber Thierry Dusautoir, while the Nineties All Blacks featured Zinzan Brooke. Besides boasting a Christian name to die for, the number seven was a superstar forward, as was South Africa’s World Cup-winning captain Francois Pienaar.

Wales, too, have revelled in some talented and versatile twenty-first century back three exponents, so vital in their Grand Slam successes. Lydiate, Faletau, Ryan Jones and Warburton have all run, scrambled, foraged and tackled like Trojans but for me two others have stood out even more. Colin Charvis was unmissable in his scruffy semi-dreadlocks but the red-headed Martyn Williams was outstanding. He wasn’t as big as many around him but was superb around the fringes and, like Charvis, also collected many great tries. Nobody in Wales begrudged his contrived substitution against the Barbarians in 2012 which welcomed him to the 100-cap club.

Another Welshman, Mervyn Davies, was probably the first number eight I would readily recognise. It wasn’t his prowess on the field, although that was legendary, but his trademark moustache and broad white headband. He wasn’t bulky by modern standards but was a Wales and Lions mainstay in the Seventies before illness intervened. Another memorable back-rower from that decade was England’s Andy Ripley. I distinctly remember his head-down-high-knee action when sprinting away from chasing defenders, a style which also served him well when competing in TV’s Superstars. Like Merv the Swerv, sadly he died far too young.

Two other pack leaders I enjoyed watching are very much alive. In the Noughties, Sebastian Chabal was probably the most distinctive rugby player in world rugby. His epithet of ‘The Caveman’ was incredibly apposite. It wasn’t just his fearsome long, lank dark hair and beard, but also that unchanging expression which said: “Me, rugby player, me stop you running”, albeit in French. Obviously. 

Wild man Chabal is poles apart from balding, multilingual Sergio Parisse. The Argentine-born long-time captain of Italy seems the archetypal modern rugby forward. An athletic six foot five, he seems capable of playing anywhere and doing anything. There he is beneath the drop-out, leading a rolling maul, catching in the lineout, delivering an exquisite behind-the-back pass and storming over for a rare Italy try. I’ve also seen him plant a perfect drop-goal between the posts. I feel so sorry for him in that he has carried such a relatively weak side for so long. Had he been born a Kiwi or Englishman he’d be a genuine superstar of world rugby. If I had to pick a favourite player of all time, Parisse would surely sit in my top three.