My Take on Rugby Player Size
You know, for the longest time, I had this picture in my head. When someone said ‘rugby player,’ I immediately thought of these absolute mountains of men. Just huge dudes, built like brick outhouses, the kind you wouldn’t want to bump into in a dark alley, or even a well-lit one, to be honest.
My journey into actually understanding what’s what with rugby player size wasn’t exactly planned. It all kicked off when my local club was looking for volunteers. Not to play, mind you, I was well past my prime for that kind of rough and tumble. Nah, they needed help with odd jobs, setting up on match days, that sort of thing. I had a bit of time on my hands, so I figured, why not? Get out of the house, you know?
So, I started hanging around the club. At first, it was just the senior team practices I’d catch glimpses of. And yeah, some of those guys were big, no doubt about it. But then I started seeing the youth teams, the women’s team, and even the ‘golden oldies’ having a run around. It was a real eye-opener, I tell ya.
What I saw completely blew my old ideas out of the water.
I saw lads who were wiry, quick as lightning, darting through gaps I didn’t even see exist. I saw players who weren’t the tallest or the heaviest but had the heart of a lion and tackled like demons. Then you had the big units, sure, the props and locks, doing the heavy lifting in the scrums and lineouts. But even they weren’t all the same cookie-cutter shape. Some were tall and powerful, others were shorter but incredibly solid.
- I spent hours, just watching, leaning on the fence, nursing a lukewarm tea.
- I started chatting with the coaches, the players, even some of the parents.
- I learned that it wasn’t just about being big; it was about being effective for your position.
One old coach, a fella named Tommo, crusty as an old boot but knew his rugby inside out, he told me something that stuck. He pulled me aside one afternoon, after I’d made some daft comment about needing bigger players. He said, ‘Look, son, rugby’s a game for all shapes and sizes. Always has been, always will be. You need your big boppers, sure, but you also need your little whippets. It’s like a toolbox, innit? You don’t just fill it with sledgehammers. You need all sorts of tools to get the job done right.’
And he was spot on. I saw it week in, week out. The game needs the strength, yes, but it also thrives on speed, agility, endurance, and just plain old rugby smarts. You can’t measure heart and grit with a tape measure or a set of scales. I watched a scrum-half, probably couldn’t have weighed more than 70 kilos soaking wet, bossing around forwards twice his size, dictating the whole game. It was fantastic to see, truly.
So, when people ask me about rugby player size now, I tell them it’s not as simple as ‘big’. It’s about finding your place, using what you’ve got. I got to see it all unfold right there on the muddy pitches, week after week. It wasn’t from reading some fancy sports science journal or watching highlights on telly. It was from being there, seeing the sweat, hearing the shouts, and understanding that this game truly has a spot for almost anyone willing to give it a proper go. That’s my two cents on it, anyway, learned the old-fashioned way: by just being there and paying attention.
