Despite their raw talent, few believe that Fiji could ever win a rugby world cup. But now, driven by an Aussie named Mick, the flying Fijians are finally beginning to think the impossible might just be possible.
He hadn’t seen the jersey for decades, but it still bore the scars inflicted by opponents’ studs over sixty years before. Now reunited with his beloved red shirt, the memories come flooding back for Irishman Noel Murphy, British & Irish Lion #404.
When Gwenllian Pyrs was offered a professional contract with Wales, there was only one response. But, once the dust settled, it dawned on her she’d have to leave home: leave the village, the farm, her family, and, more importantly, Dot and her four siblings.
Before she took to the field against South Africa, it all became too much for Natalia John. The tears flowed, she broke down. She wasn’t just playing for her country, it felt like she was also playing for her livelihood, her family and, specifically, her nephew Morgan.
The story of Bridgend-born Meg Webb, who plays for Brython Thunder, Bristol Bears and Wales, also features in the new issue of Rugby Journal. Available to buy here.
When a fifty-year-old Topsham printer went to Exeter to try and get a game of rugby, he was told he was too old for them. Undeterred, he opted to set up his own club, in a town known for building warships, fishing, and having an awful lot of pubs.
In the farming lands of north Norfolk, where Sirs Benjamin Britten and James Dyson went to school, in a town that was once burnt to cinders, a 91-year-old former boxer has found a home unlike any he’s ever known, at Holt RFC.
A meadow of bulls where a thousand years has seen two battles with the barbarians, the birth of Bram Stoker, and lots of rugby silverware. Welcome to the Parish. Welcome to Clontarf.
Two years after beating the All Blacks, the legendary 1971 British & Irish Lions decided to get together for one last hurrah. The men who’d faced down the haka now headed for Penryn, an ancient Cornish borough on a river where pirates once hid, men hauled granite and Spanish ships were sent fleeing by the townsfolk.
In the kind of town you’ve driven through a thousand times, Viking chiefs once roamed, a shop-keeping British & Irish Lion was raised, Russian KGB agents were snubbed and ‘the Wasps’ were given an almighty fright by the rugby kings of Cumbria.
