T
TheTruth
Guest
Won't find many in the backs
Stan Pilecki is a good start
Stan Pilecki is a good start
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Rugby Parent
Stan Wickham (3)
The Phantom Puncher - Steve Finnane
Bruce Ross
Ken Catchpole (46)
Attitudes change over time. If you go back a couple of generations an exponent of the king hit wouldn't have been thought of as a hard man.
D
Dunnman
Guest
Sounds like the typical aussie attitude to me.....
T
TheTruth
Guest
probably my definition of a "hard man' is that of an uncompromising player, a player with a huge win to win, a player who will stand by his mates, a player who will put his body on the line without thought, a player who can take punishment (and give it) and carry on, a tough player. BUT not a dirty prick
wamberal
Phil Kearns (64)
Finnane refused to tour New Zealand, because the word was out that he would be sorted, big time.
Hard men would include Tony Shaw, Sam Scott-Young, Rod "Slaughter" McCall, as well as others mentioned above, particularly Pricey, who played through his tour of the British Isles with a hernia.
But the toughest of them all was that big bastard, Tim Bristow. If he had had an ounce of self-discipline, he would have been a Wallaby great. His Gordon partner-in-crime, Ken Yanz, was also a thug.
Of course, in those days, there were no assistant referees, or video recordings - you could do pretty much anything you liked.
Gnostic
Mark Ella (57)
Sir Nick Shehadie
Poido - back when there were no subs no amount of punishment would get him off the field
Willie O - If there was ever an Oz player who was a feared defender who oppoenents would avoid it was Pastor Willie
Second the nomination of Phil Waugh & add David Croft to that if only for that epic battle between the two. Second also Nathan "Psycho" Grey.
Poido - back when there were no subs no amount of punishment would get him off the field
Willie O - If there was ever an Oz player who was a feared defender who oppoenents would avoid it was Pastor Willie
Second the nomination of Phil Waugh & add David Croft to that if only for that epic battle between the two. Second also Nathan "Psycho" Grey.
Cutter
Nicholas Shehadie (39)
Was it a king hit Bruce? In that series, the Lions were playing schoolyard bully were they not? A dog eat dog type of situation?
kiap
Steve Williams (59)
Agree on all those. Played hard. Done good.
Nick Shehadie was a true rugby man. Instrumental in the creation of the world cup too.
Gnostic
Mark Ella (57)
Is. He hasn't been sent to his final scrum yet.
kiap
Steve Williams (59)
:thumb True. You are right, of course, although at 84 now he's been retired from public life for good while these days (except for being Mr Bashir)..
DownsSupporter
Frank Nicholson (4)
Stuart MacDougal and his little hooker mate..
Bruce Ross
Ken Catchpole (46)
We are in agreement, Cutter, other than on two points. The first is whether the breaking of Graham Price's jaw - which I assume is what you are referring to - was the result of a king hit. The second is a correction. Finnane never played against the Lions.
Until the mid-1970s home nation teams would routinely bash Australian forwards who were usually too intimidated to respond in kind. This all changed when Dave Brockhoff took over as national coach. Brock's philosophy was that "games are won up front" and he openly stated that "backs are only there to make up the numbers." He implemented the 'Step Forward' policy which required that his pack never take a backward step, and fight fire with fire, preferably by getting in first. Thus it might legitimately be said that Steve Finnane was a Brockhoff creation.
The Graham Price incident occurred in a 1978 Test against Wales and there is general agreement that it was a punch from behind against an unsuspecting opponent, the classic form of the 'king hit'. This is Price's take on it, 27 years later:
"It was very early in the game, before we'd really got warmed up, and I got caught by the shot.
"I don't think that he [Finnane] set out to do the damage he did, he was just trying to intimidate me.
"But he caught me coming out of a scrum with my jaw at its most vulnerable - open and gasping for air - and the photos obviously went around the world."
The fact that it was the Australian press that dubbed him "the phantom puncher of Sydney" plus the fact that he was renowned throughout Sydney rugby as a stun puncher in similar circumstances also lend weight to the claim that he can legitimately be remembered as an exponent of the king hit.
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