"Seedy Catalogue Of Thuggery"

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31215, 12 November 1966, Page 11

"Seedy Catalogue Of Thuggery"

"He was strangling me so I took a chunk out of him.’’ (Exeter forward).

"He had his teeth in the lobe of my left ear and kept chewing and wouldn’t let go. I was afraid that if I tried to pull away my ear would be ripped off." (O. Waldron, Oxford forward).

"Biting’s bad, but eye gouging's the worst. 1 mean, you can’t get a new eye ’’ (Old International). Why Baroness Summerskill never summerskills about Rugby Union, “Miscellany” cannot fathom. There’s the flailing elbow in the line-out, the hand in an opponent’s pocket when he goes for the ball, the simple ruse of standing on his toes, late tackles, obstruction, straight punch-ups. A seedy catalogue of thuggery. But why bite? One retired star advances three reasons: retaliation and escalation of a personal struggle; sheer dirtiness —an Oxford team once formed an inner club of players bitten by a chap at another varsity; and “a kind of Claustrophobia when a certain sort of player gets buried in a scrum and is so desperate to get out he’ll do anything.” There seemed general approval, on “Miscellany’s” abbreviated tour of Rugby bars yesterday, for the Australians’ courage in sending Ross Cullen home. And a question for British referees. Will they be tough and fair enough to stamp

out the kind of gratuitous law-breaking which infects much of British Rugby? Will they give the Australians a chance? —“Miscellany” in "The Guardian.”