You’d have to have a hard, hard heart – or be an Ulster fan – not to find this funny. Nathan Hines manages to keep Stephen Ferris, Johann Muller and Pedrie Wannenberg [as Gorilla Monsoon would have said, “weighing in at a combined weight of 709 lbs”] out of the game for a good thirty seconds … and all on his own!
There’s hanging out of someone’s jersey, and then there’s this phenomenal bit of scallywagging. One of the great nuisances of the professional rugby era has just painted his masterpiece.
Digging Like a Demented Mole 
IRFU braintrust at their very finest. This is (probably) what we’ll be up against in the H Cup semi final, as opposed to having him doing this on our behalf.
Seriously, a big round of applause for the IRFU fcukwit who wouldn’t agree to keep him on with Leinster.
Hats off the the big fella, that’s some feat. People talk about dirty Leeds & Neil Back at Leicester, but Big Nate is the King of the Dark Arts. I don’t disagree that Leinster were mad to let him go, from what I’ve seen, the likes of Toner etc. would have learnt a lot from him….in my view every team needs an enforcer (or two).
However the discipline shown by Wannenburg NOT to punch the head off him, or in Ferris’s case to “do a Balotelli” on him, have to be applauded. In Junior rugby, or at least most other levels beyond the realms of TV cameras and designated touchies, Big Nate woulda (deservedly in my mind) got a slap or three, especially since his actions led directly to Clermont “scoring” right beside the sticks. That would have unquestionably changed the course of the match. As Guy Noves knows, there’s the mental, and there’s the “mental”. Think Trevor Brennan. A stalwart in the Toulouse side for so many years, one of the hardest “nuts” to crack. I know Joe Schmidt is playing a cracking brand of rugby at the moment, I just feel they need a bit more of the dog at times, although Leo’s cynical clean out and deserved sin binning against Connacht recently might argue against that. Just sayin’…..
Just sayin’
hope you didn’t run out of breath.
Ha, funny! Any thoughts on why JS is rumoured to be in the Market for Big Bradley Thorne’s signature? Is he not EXACTLY the kind of brute I mentioned above? Did every Leinster fan in the province not cream themselves at the very thought of his arrival?
Brad Thorne vs Deirdre Toner. Discuss
“Hinesy has brought that to them as well. We know the way he plays. He is so annoying to play against. He is always in the wrong position, he’ll always be scragging someone back, he’ll always be irritating someone, lying on the wrong side. You saw it against Ulster [in January] where he blocked [for the Clermont try]. That’s what he does” Shane Horgan Irish Times 25th April.