Quotes About Rugby

Toulouse expanded my game. You were given a freedom to play and express yourself on the field. Toulouse is the biggest club in Europe, rugby's equivalent of Real Madrid. Their game has always been about offloading and running but it is also physical, the complete 'package. It was always exciting, no matter how close a game was.

Rugby is just a ball. I would be much more versed to coach American football, but you need 22 players and all of the equipment. With rugby, all you need is some green grass, a ball, and a bunch of kids who want to run into each other really hard, which they enjoy.

The sports are almost different cultures so saying I prefer one to the other is wrong. Rugby union is guided by a lot of rules, league by the players.

I had just been promoted to the first rugby team. It was a perfect, wonderful coming of age. My brother was already in the team, and my father had come to watch us. We went home, and my father died in front of me. Horribly, in about half an hour. He had a heart attack.

It's the first time I've been cold for seven years. I was never cold playing rugby league.

The time I've spent in professional Premiership club rugby has been invaluable.

I played fly-half in rugby, so I could influence the game, and midfield in hockey too. So it is part of my sporting DNA to want to be in the game at all times, to affect what is going on. That's down to genetics and being ginger, I reckon. We're special specimens.

When I joined Sale I thought that if I did well there I would have a chance of making the World Cup squad. What I did not expect was how quickly I got back into the frame.

The popularity of rugby definitely grew in South Africa over the World Cup, and sport has great power, so hopefully it will make some difference. Even if it's just 1%, it's a bit of a change.

As a rugby player, you strive to be an All Black, win a World Cup, and win a Super Rugby title.

I'd love to feature for the Barbarians. I'd love to win a Champions Cup, and I'd love to get to another World Cup and make a fist of it: get to a World Cup final at least and see what could have been, particularly after 2011 when Wales reached the semi-finals.

I can remember lacing up my boots ahead of my first cap against Japan in the 1995 World Cup in South Africa. I remember the changing room, the smell of the place, every last detail of how I warmed up, walking out onto the pitch, thinking how proud my parents would be. I was doing all I ever wanted to do.

I played rugby league, I probably played for about 10 years I think, and I wrestled before then. I did about a year of wrestling, and I think I got a bit tired of the tights, so I started to play football with the mates. I used to be a front rower, the big guys up front. I used to be 97 kilograms, which is like 210 pounds, or something like that.

Rugby gave me a confidence. I was quite shy and relatively timid, but it gave me the confidence to be a little bit more out-going and back myself a bit more.

I'm from Samoan heritage, and with the rugby in our blood and everything, I always felt I've been tough, and that my tolerance for pain is pretty high.

I find it hard to believe that anyone could be playing regularly and saying they do not have a niggle. It is the nature of the beast, what you get when you play a lot of rugby: you have to get another niggle to forget about the one you already have.

I went to a school two hours away from where I lived because it was the best rugby school in the country.

I was born and raised to play rugby. I have two parents who are hugely proud of my rugby achievements, but even they say that maybe it was just a platform to give me a voice to do something better, and rugby wasn't what I was all about. Something else was.

We're removal men. It's hard labour. I've come to the conclusion being a forward is probably the worst thing in rugby. Looking at backs, they play kick and laugh, run and clap and we get absolutely flogged.

I lost my front tooth in rugby league when a fat guy from Bellevue Hill kicked me in the face as I got up from a tackle to mark him. I made this decision not to cap the tooth because I thought it was false. But I didn't make any movies as a teenager, and I had a very hard time with girls and stuff.

The time for reminiscing is after rugby. Then you can sit down and get fat.

For Irishmen, there is no football game to match rugby and if all our young men played rugby not only would we beat England and Wales but France and the whole lot of them put together.

I love baseball. And American Football, too. But not rugby.

I had a lot of anger because I didn't like who I was when I was off the field. I used to relish the chance to try and hurt somebody in a legal way, and in the game of rugby you were able to do that.