Posted by thelockeroom on January 17, 2009 under London Wasps Yarns | 
Like the economy, it’s crunch time. Stakes could not be higher for this Saturday’s game vs Leinster. With a quarter final place up for grabs and the game being held at Wasps favourite ‘big game’ hunting ground of Twickenham – the lads are up for it.
Along with the invasion of the Irish this weekend, we have had a similar invasion of the Irish at Wasps HQ. There is a definite Celtic feel in the locker rooms at Twyford Ave, with the addition of two former Munstermen in the form of Maurice ‘Mossy’ Lawler, and the sexual being that is Damien ‘Cletus the Slack Jawed Yokel’ Varley. Both lads have added tremendous amount to Wasps not only on the pitch, but also off it. Not afraid of the occasional brew and odd bit of impromptu Irish jigging, both lads have fitted well into the Wasps team culture. These lads follow a long line of handsome Irishman who have plied their trade at wasps over the years. Here is my ode to the Irish, past and present:
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Posted by thelockeroom on January 5, 2009 under General Rugby Yarns, London Wasps Yarns |
Lachie aka 'The Aussie Grinch' bursts through Santa's defence as he makes off with Xmas presents.
Voted tightest man outside the Netherlands in 2008.
Ah Christmas and new years. What a splendid time to spend with family, friends and play a game of footy.
Changing room F (my changing room) at Wasps celebrated the start of the festive season in typically un –generous style. With the belts firmly tightened due to ‘the crunch’ and the fact that at least 4 of the guys in the locker room are tighter than a dutchmans you know what, the sum for the Secret Santa presents maxed out at a whopping £10. This paltry sum suited some of the lads, most notably Wasps fullback Lachlan Mitchell. Flying the flag for tight Aussie colonials, Lachie’s present consisted of a £2 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from Tesco’s – coming in 8 quid short, and in the process openly flouting the £10 present rule. To top it off he wrapped it in a piece of discarded newspaper. A real giver… Read more of this article »
Posted by thelockeroom on under London Wasps Yarns |
Chris does amazingly well to score here, seemingly unhampered by his Krusty the Clown comedy boots.
This week we hear from one of the academy lads - Chris Bishay. Its always interesting hearing yarns from the younger lads and it takes me back to my days as a spritely young whippersnapper, just breaking into top class rugby. However youth is pretty much the only comparison myself and Chis have. Unlike Chris when i was his age, I wasnt mincing around downtown with a hoodie on ‘happy slapping’ unsuspecting members of the public. I definatly cant remember wearing my boxer shorts down around my ankles and walking with a fake limp whilst kicking with my ‘homeboys’ down at the local amusement emporium - innit. However differences and joking aside, Bish is a top lad and along with his burgeoning rugby career has taken on another responsibility with a new born son, and if his little tacker could have seen Dad play yesterday against Quins he would be a very proud boy indeed.
-Joe
I had a great weekend in Edinburgh a few weeks ago in the Heineken Cup game. I was in the match squad but was unfortunately travelling as 23rd man. Being 23rd man isn’t ideal but if you’re going to do it, an away European trip is the best time. Read more of this article »
Posted by thelockeroom on December 29, 2008 under General Rugby Yarns, Guest Rugby Player Blogs |
Here Ben is about to unleash one of his trademark ‘Sky Reacher’ passes – Unfortunatly the recipient never recovered from the resulting rib disintegrating tackle, as he was attempting to pluck the ball 2m above his head.
After giving us insights into life as a pro rugby player at Edinburgh Gunners and unselfishly revealing the secrets to the ‘Grassburner’ scrumhalf pass - my old sparring partner Ben Meyer looks back on the classic days of rugby. They were simpler times, they were better times, they were more drunken times.
enjoy
Joe
Old School
As the financial axe hovers over some of the Guinness Premiership teams, belts begin to tighten on waists long lost to the confines of the standard 38” corduroy stride. We look back to the early days of professional rugby where ‘salary caps’ were a new vegetable from the South and ‘foreign players’ were the ‘ginga’ freckly kids from the local housing estate.
I look back to the first contract I received, when the game went professional in New Zealand following the ‘Soup of the Day’ scandal at the 95 RWC in the Republic. I signed at the dotted line as a 78kg (dripping wet) Business Studies student and part time forklift driver, for the honourable figure of $1250 per year, until death. A fair price given North Harbour had yet to see the ‘crowd pulling’ potential of the ‘grass-burner’ and ‘rainbow’ passes I have come to be remembered by (thanks Joe). Read more of this article »
Posted by thelockeroom on December 22, 2008 under Guest Rugby Player Blogs, London Wasps Yarns |
As a stalwart of the All Blacks for many years and for the last few years as a player and coach for London Wasps – Dowdy has been there and done that. I remember when i first signed on for Wasps in 2005 he wa
s the first to pick me up from the airport, and from then on was my chauffer to and from games for the next couple of months. As a big fan of Dowdy when i was growing up, i was naturally nervous and a bit shy when conversing with the man. This lack of banter was observed to the delight of my brother , who used to travel with us on the 45 min drive to the games. On one occasion, knowing my propensity to sweat when faced with new and awkward situations, Nick (my brother) decided to turn up the heating in the front seat where i was sitting. It was an ingenuis and devilish ploy. For 45 minutes i was a blithering, sweat dripping mess. I dont know what Dowdy was thinking of me, but he must of thought he had signed a barely literate, stumbling sweaty simpleton.
Anyway thankfully i redeemed myself after a while and came to get on well with the big man. There have been many memorable characters and moments in Wasps history and Dowdy has been involved in his fair share. One such event that made the boys laugh was after a game where we had stopped off at a quiet pub for a few ales. Dowdy, while pointing out the finer points of front row play to a young Rob Webber (Wasp’s lightly calf-muscled hooker) had his arm wrapped around the startled youngster and enforcing his various point. What he didn’t realise was that he still had the black marker pen he had used to sign a couple of autographs earlier on. While passing on his advice he was unaware that he was scribbling all over Rob’s pressed white shirt. Being an upstart youngster he didn’t say a word as Dowdy proceeded to unknowingly graffiti all over Webbs’ shirt. The boys witnessing this were on the floor laughing.
Anyway, sadly he has gone now back to New Zealand and recently has been appointed as North Harbour’s NPC Head Coach. I caught up with him a couple of weeks ago and had a yarn: Read more of this article »
Posted by thelockeroom on December 18, 2008 under General Rugby Yarns, Guest Rugby Player Blogs |
A fan of casual nudity, Ben chose the wrong moment to expose the pants his missus brought him at xmas.
It is with great pleasure that i introduce to you all Ben Meyer - the man who was once considered throughout the rugby world, as possessing the most devastating ’grassburning’ pass in the modern game. It was on many occasion when we used to play in the same team, that i found myself reaching for the dirt to scoop up one of his trademark ‘grassburners’. Such was the ferocity and power of his deliveries, the rugby pitch at the conclusion of our games would resemble the Daytona 500 Racetrack, as there were so many elongated burnout-out marks on the turf. I’m glad to say however, those days are behind him and he has gone on to a distinguished career, playing for the NZ Sevens Team, Auckland Blues in the Super 14 and skippering the Counties NPC Team. It is for the off field tom foolery where Ben also excelled, and I leave it to him to explain.
Tradition, Tee’s and Tabernacles
As an irregular reader of Joseph Ward’s ‘Inside the Locker Room’, I am continually inundated with email requests (from his chief distribution manager… his wife) to ‘click on the link’ for an insight into the life of a professional rugby player. Two points concern me about these requests. Firstly, how does a bloke with a body like a pub darts thrower, get away with calling himself a professional athlete? And secondly, why he has asked the 3rd string scrumhalf and No.1 water carrier at Edinburgh Rugby, to offer his views on life in the pro footy lane? One can only hope the current mailing list of 8, does not decrease due to the inability of this blog to attract players of significant stature and physical beauty. Apparently I have large ears!
Having now succumbed to the barrage of emails and acknowledging that I have known Joe, back when he had a full head of hair and colour TV was still only a dream for NZ, I must admit he expels some fine literary prose. The following is some brief exerts from my former career as a regular starting scrumhalf and life here in the ‘summer-less’ north of Scotland. Read more of this article »
Posted by thelockeroom on December 15, 2008 under General Rugby Yarns, Guest Rugby Player Blogs |
Hollywood actor, Owen Wilson, does his impersonation of ex-Cambridge nerd Martin Purdy.
In this edition of ‘Where Are They Now’, former Wasps and Bath mauling specialist and Cambridge University poindexter – Martin Purdy, regales us with his latest hi-jinx in NZ and around the world. Well known for his scintillating wit, charm and oral hygene, the blonde bombshell’s yarn should be a great read. Feel free to leave a comment.
Rugby Players can have a Gap Year too…
Yes I decided that in the middle of my somewhat stalling career, I’d grow a beard, get my hair put in dreadlocks, start wearing tie-dyed clothes, stop washing, and travel round the world in the hope of “finding myself.”
Well not quite…
For a start I can’t grow a beard, and almost as importantly, I hate hippies. I have stopped washing, however.
Anyway, I have done a spot of travelling over the last few months; in fact I have made it all the way round the world. Towards the end of last season I was approached by the living legend that is Craig “keep it down I can’t get a word in edgeways” Dowd. He had recently been appointed head of rugby development for Air NZ cup side North Harbour, and told me that their team was in dire need of a specialist scrummaging lock (jumping/ball carrying/handling skills very much optional). Obviously I jumped at the chance after hearing all of Wards yarns about the “mighty” Harbour, and the shenanigans which apparently go on on that side of the world. They provided me with a beautiful shiny new Falcon with sweet racing stripes, and I settled into the bogan way of life. Read more of this article »
Posted by thelockeroom on December 11, 2008 under London Wasps Yarns |
8am
Woke up to our cat Rex staring at me, and my wife Amanda’s hair dryer blowing hot air strong enough to melt and turn over a small car. No breakfast as i need to drop fat.
8:45am
Dropped the wife off and headed to our training ground for my 9am fatburner. Guys walk past the cardio room offering encouraging words like –“need another 2 hrs on that bike fatty” and so on. I take it on the chin – both of them.
9:45am
Decide not to shower after my 40min fatburner as i have physio on my shoulder and want to annoy Prav Mathema (our comically Obsessive Compulsive and highly annoyable physiotherapist). It works. He then gets one back on me by sticking needles into my shoulder under the guise of rehabilitation. I then watch Prav perform a dodgy operation on Wasps second rower Richard Birkett. Birky has half torn his big toe nail and needs the rest to come off. Prav resembles Dr Frankenstein botching a procedure and creating a monster, as poor old Richard Birkett is writhing in pain.
11:00am
Lower Body Leg conditioning. Paul “Chip” Cater, my American trainer goes over the upcoming session. It reads like a training regimen if Stephen King was a personal trainer. Horrific exercise names like - Rectum holds’, ‘Bulgarian split squats’ and ‘Prone Cobra’s’ nearly make me gag. We start training to the music of Rocky, Fleetwood Mac, and oddly, Dolly Parton. Read more of this article »
Posted by thelockeroom on under London Wasps Yarns |
Chalk up another one for the Fonz!
So I take you to the year of 1980, my personal hero – Kenny Rogers has just had his first hit in the UK with ‘Coward of the County’. Tye Dye t-shirts and fondue parties have been replaced by power dressing, Men (like current Wasps Coach Ian McGeechan) started growing pony-tails and the newly created yuppie’s began mincing around with cell phones as big as a PC computer. Arthur Fonzeralli aka ‘The Fonz’ is still a big hit in the TV show Happy Days, even though he continues to suspiciously maintain an ‘office’ in the toilets of the local High School diner. In season 8, episode 2 – The Fonz is back from Italy, grown a beard because he didn’t know Italian for ‘razor’, and has just been hired to be the High School’s mechanic teacher. Hilarity ensues…
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Posted by thelockeroom on December 2, 2008 under London Wasps Yarns |
Well its been a very interesting few weeks at Wasps HQ. Its been a tough one as well, with 3 games in 7 days and a must win Heineken cup match on the weekend - the boys have come through it pretty tired but relatively unscathed (albeit 2 players who had done themselves a mischief last week with one having 5 sore knuckles and the other a boo boo on his upper lip) . The results have been a bit mixed and as professional sportsmen you hate to lose, and as part of a close, tight knit family atmosphere like at Wasps, the losses shudder through our corridors and changing rooms even more so. The reason for this is that we expect to win and everyone else expects us to win. Thankfully we have the right people in place to be able to soldier on and be successful as it showed yesterday against Castres. It was especially good to see Danny and Josh play well, after the ridiculous circus that surrounded them last week.
On this note I’ve compiled a dream list of the punch up’s involving Wasps players I’d like to see Read more of this article »
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