Ray McLoughlin broke his thumb punching some Canterbury lad in the head in that game, in fairness.Hornet wrote:Ah! The good old days? You really want to see the sort of thuggery that went on then?leinster4life13 wrote:Eye gouging and biting aside(which imo should be punished a lot more severely) the rest is just PC window dressing, a few weeks for a bit of handbags? It should be more tolerated, if two enforcers want to go at it, let them be, like hockey or like rugby league used to be in the 90's before the safety police got involved. Do we want a totally sanitised game, like yankball or soccer?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egGQ1l7rulo
Or :-
"Canterbury v Lions 1971
The Lions were cutting a swathe through New Zealand ahead of the Test series, and something had to be 'done' to slow their progress before the first Test. Cue one of the bloodiest, most premeditated assaults in rugby history from Canterbury which resulted in Scottish prop Sandy Carmichael, Irish prop Ray McLoughlin and Irish No 8 Mick Hipwell being invalided off the tour, as well as leaving Irish flanker Fergus Slattery with concussion and without two teeth."
Or more recently :-
http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/i ... -1.2106242
Handbags? Really? I despair of people like you.
Sandy Carmichael took an absolute pasting in that game, the photo of his face in the aftermath is pretty infamous [here: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/10/ ... 06x439.jpg ].
By all accounts he was a gentleman and took rugby for what it was, i.e. a game. There was no doubting his toughness, because he went the full 80mins with 5 fractures in his cheekbone. It was a dirtier game back then though and it was expected that you would settle scores outside the laws on the pitch.