Name your \"hard bastard\" 17 of all time

[OVP]

Melon did this thread on The Wall quite a while ago, and i thought it might be worthwhile seeing everyone elses choices, other than Rooster fans ... i hope you dont mind Melonovski

This is MY team, name yours

1. Luke Phillips ... after last season who could argue ?Played 2 semis and a grand final with a shoulder that was MORE than broken. I saw X-rays of his shoulder after the GF and it dead set looked like rats had eaten it away ... poor Luke, but is it any wonder why he is so loved by us Roosters ?
2. Eric Grothe ... try and tackle him lol
3. Gene Miles ... BIG bastard and hardest runner i've ever seen.
4. Big Mal ... legend, enough said
5. Smoking Joe Kilroy ... spent time in prison on drugs charges.
6. Wally Lewis ... hard nut of a 5/8 ... like another forward in the backs but with MEGA-skill.
7. Horrie Hastings or Tom Raudonikis ... noone could stop either of the little battlers. Horrie played 230 games in a row before one of his injuries got the better of him, and Tommy was quite frankly, psycho :lol: ... take your pick, i'd pick Hastings personally tho.
8. Bob Cooper ... i'll never forget the photo of Lee Pomfrett in the paper after Bob Cooper smashed him with ONE humungous punch ... poor Lee LOL
9. Bunny Reilly ... The original and best "axe" there ever was. Gilmeister had NOTHING on the original and best IMO
10. John "Dallas" Donnelly ... Hard nut and a half, died at 40 from a VERY hard-living life
11. Les Boyd ... complete thug LOL
12. Terry Randall - Viscous tackler, probably on par with Bunny Reilly for best defender ever.
13. Ron Gibbs ...Ron was psycho LOL

Bench
14. Chris Close - Choppy was great, only knew one way to run ... hard, straight and over the top of everyone who stood in his way.
15. Terry Reagan - a complete psycho, not even Ron Gibbs was as nuts as this guy ... i'll never forget when he got injured in a tackle and the camera zoomed in on his eyes ... he kept playing and scared me sh!tless seeing those psychotic eyes LOL
16. Malcolm Reilly ... dirty-playing Pom but f**k he was a good, hard, tough player
17. Lee Crooks - VERY dirty-playing POM

 

[rossy]

I think i'd like to see Cliff Watson in their somewhere. He was a ha-a-a-rd bastard, OVP.

Considering the performance of Bondi's own Mozza I reckon he's on the way to being added to the list!

 

[The Colonel]

1. Graham Eadie
2. Eric Grothe
3. Mark Harris
4. Chris Mortimer
5. Peter Dimond
6. Tom Raudonikis
7. Tommy Bishop
8. John Sattler
9. Ian Kelly
10. John Donnelly
11. Terry Randall
12. Mal Reilly
13. Ray Price

Reserves: Rod Reddy, Jack Gibson, John McMartin, Ray Higgs

 

[Misty Bee]

1 Clive Churchill - played game with broken arm
2. Eric Grothe
3. Mal Meninga
4. Mark Harris
5. Terry Fahey
6. Eric Weissell - ran 75m on a broken ankle in a test to set up the match winning play
7. Peter Sterling - dislocated a shoulder in a test match once,and popped her right back in!
8. John Sattler - the broken jaw
9. Geoff Toovey - grand final with a broken eye socket? Yuck!
10. Alan Prescott - led GB to victory witha broken arm
11. Ray Higgs - played '76 GF with a broken jaw. If you have Sattler, you MUST have Higgs, or you are pissing in the wind!
12. Les Boyd. Pure thug
13. Ray Price. Indestructable!

 

[Bobby DIGital]

1. Phillips. Kamikaze fullback who always charged back with gusto
2. Eric Grothe. Hardest player to tackle I've ever seen.
3. Jason Croker. Tore his knee to pieces but still played on agaisnt the Roosters as we had no bench left!!
4 Ruben Wiki. Smashes blokes every single game.
5. Francis Meli. Hes young, But in 10 years this comment will be justified
6. Laurie Daley. Played the last 3 years of his career on one leg.
7. Tommy Raudonokis. No explination needed here.
8. Kevin Tamati. Ask Greg Dowling why.
9. Geoff Toovey. Hated his guts, but had the ultimate respect for him
10. David Gillespie. Cement was rock hard
11. Mark Graham. Broke most bones in his body, but still came back
12. Les Boyd. Absolute maniac.
13. Ray Price. Mr Perpetual motion could give it to the best of them.

 

[The Colonel]

Denis Gleeson is the hardest barstard of all time. You may have read about him a year or two ago in Big League or seen him on Sports Tonight.

While he may not have played NRL the reason he takes the crown is simple.


* He is now pushing 67.

* He still trains at least four days a week that I know of.

* He still plays competitively for State Rail in the NSW Student Rugby League.

* He had his head split just recently - deep and wide enough for stitches. His response - he wouldn't get it stitched he will be using a bit of Friar's Balsam.


* He plays in the front row and hits like David Gillespie used to.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Honourable mention:
Ian Roberts. Packs down in the front row of the toughest football competetion in the world and has the balls to openly admit to being gay. respect.

 

[brook]

Honourable mention:
Ian Roberts. Packs down in the front row of the toughest football competetion in the world and has the balls to openly admit to being gay. respect.

have to agree there!

there was a Balmain player early on in the clubs history who played a full game of footy despite breaking his leg in the early stages - can't remember his name although retread knows it

thats gotta qualify!!

 

[millersnose]

gavin miller

the most head hunted player in the history of league

never took a backward step

 

[Special K]

Brett Kimmorley is one of the toughest half backs running around. He played on with a busted nut and he played on with a broken jaw :shock:

 

[The Colonel]

He did play on with the jaw ..... but he didn't last too long with that busted Jatz Cracker. :shock:

 

[Special K]

he played on for about 10 minutes with the busted nut. He didn't do much but the fact that he got up and was trying to run and guide the boys around is amazing. Most of us would be down for the count He played for about 50 minutes with the Jaw(from late in the first half and finished the game) and then even made his return early before he should have and ended up with the nut thing.

I'm not saying his the toughest but he has to get a mention :shock:

 

[Mighty Tiger]

1. Graham Eadie
2. Eric Grothe
3. Gene Miles
4. Mal Meninga
5. Terry Fahey
6. Tom Raudonikis
7. Horror Hastings
8. John Sattler
9. Geoff Toovey
10. John Donnelly
11. Malcolm Reilly
12. Les Boyd
13. Ray Price


Had to have both Horror and Tommy starting in the halves together ;-)

 

[simon says]

No one has mentioned Les Davidson,Peter Kelly and Blocker Roach.Not too many got the better of those three.Id also have Junior in there,he was one tough bugger,and Gillespie,he was tough too.Mario Fenech was a tough bugger too,so theres a forward pack.

Roach,Fenech,Kelly,Gillespie,Davidson,Pearce.

In the backs,Raudonikaus was as tough as you get,and ill whack Garry Jack in there as well,i remember one day he had all his front teeth knocked out,stuck em in his pocket and ran 90 metres to score the winning try against Norths in the last few minutes.

 

[yappy]

Hello? Where is Ned?

good to see some wise ones have included Dimond. I can really only talk about the Mighty Magpies but I'd love to see a harder line up than

1. Jumper Leeds (struggled for real hard man at the back)
2. Dimond
3. Dealer Wells
4. Elford
5. Ribot (wash my mouth out)
6. Yappy (don't worry about his size - he loved the hard stuff)
7. Tommy
8. Dallas
9. Kelly
10. Lee Crooks (amazingly could almost qualify as captain of this selection)
11. Cooper
12. Neville Hornery
13. Boyd

14. Brendon Tuuta - Mad, mad, mad, mad, mad
15. Cement
16. Baa
17. Nev Charlton

 

[JJ]

1. Matthew Ridge - tough as they come
2. Eric Grothe - consensus
3. Chris Mortimer - hard as nails!!!!! and apparently removed pins from hand to play.
4. Mal Meninga - for coming back and breaking his arm sooo many times
5. Joe Kilroy - have to have a jail bird
6. Wally Lewis - played with broken arm in World Cup Final vs Kiwis
7. Peter Sterling (if he did pop his shoulder)
8. Mark Broadhurst - listen to people who played with him
9. Tommy Raudonikis - have to have the bastard in the team - he'd fire up the forwards
10. Donnelly - enough said
11 Ian Roberts - have to be tough to be as open as he was, and look at the pics of Garry Jack
12. Les Boyd - obviously a foregone conclusion, and captain presumably
13. Mark Graham - we need a big, angry pack

14. Kevin Tamati - ask Greg Dowling
15. Greg Dowling - to ensure plenty of niggle in training
16. John Sattler - might play lock these days
17. Quentin Pongia - with that name he had to be tough, and a fine "high shots" artist

 

[Booyah]

There are some exceptionally tough people mentioned, but what about blokes like Les Davidson, Danny Lee, Cliff Watson or the Sorensen Brothers?

I don't think you'd find too many players any tougher then Davo was.

 

[Moffo]

1. Ewen McGrady (c)
2. Rex Terp
3. Matthew Gidley
4. Chris Walker
5. Nathan Blacklock
6. Trent Barrett
7. Stu Gailbraith
13. Kevin Hardwick (vc)
12. Brad Meyers
11. Brendan Hall
10. Jason Stevens
9. Joe Thomas
8. Garrick Morgan

Cheers,
Moffo

 

[Anonymous]

For me, its a little hard to credit many of the modern players as being the toughest... what with the interchange and so on. There are few exceptions ofcourse.
But to measure a players hardiness, we have to consider what they would do if there were no more replacements (or no replacements to start with).

This doesnt happen now. I'm not criticising the modern rules (quite frankly, no player should risk permanent injury in the name of entertainment) but the long-and-short of it all is that the game used to have tougher ground rules.

And btw, I dont count thugs as tough players. Many players engage in a bit of 'payback' but there were some who just out to deliver cheap shots. IMO, these players got what they deserved on the footy field.

Then there's also a case for players who showed courage away from the football field as well.

Kevin Ryan - regarded by many of his peers as the hardest man to play Rugby League.

Bob O'Reilly - again... regarded by his peers as one of the toughest players of his era.

Billy Wilson - 'Captain Blood' because of the amount of blood he spilled. He played the 1954 semi-final with a broken arm.

John Sattler - The 'broken jaw' grand final of 1970.

Billy Smith - Always played above his weight. He took on the biggest and never stepped back. Paid for it after retirement though.

Also: Noel Kelly, Ken Kearney, Peter Dimond, Jim Cody, Tom Raudonikis, Geoff Toovey, Ian Roberts, Tewara Nikau.

Come to think of it... too many to mention....

 

[JJ]

I did consider the Sorenson brothers - as a Kiwi though I believe Broadhurst, Tamati and Graham were tougher.

But, yes, Les Davidson, how could I forget him!

I'd put him in the 2nd row, probably dropping Boyd - I'm thinking now there is a difference between tough and dirty - Boyd really was just a disgrace.

Also, I'd like to amend my choice of hooker - Davidson reminded me there was a tough bugger playing hooker in that Souths team with him - how could I forget the immortal Mario - the Falcon - Fenech???

I hang my head in shame...