Hardest has to be Gareth Thomas. Getting close to the lads and that

It did, like the time he stood aon the players face and twisted his studs around it.

Nah then,

Nice to see some of the PFU Hall of Famers gettin a mention here. It were also good to see two members doing it old school last night at Widnes.

Thanking you kindly.

Speaking from experience?

Neil Harmon. Grrrrrr.

I've said this before - Les Boyd was not a hard man. He was a thug, a king-hit merchant who looked to take players out of the game by any means.

Among overseas players, the Kiwis of the 80s like Broadhurst and the Tamatis were proper hard men, along with the likes of Kevin Ward (who Paul Vautin rates as probably the toughest person he's ever played with).

wally lewis playing the world final with a broken arm

boyd i agree was more in the dirty & fighting category , lazarus & sironen were hard not sure whether ray price hard/dirty

Glenn Lazurus - the brick with eyes - very apt

jack hirst cas and hunslet was tough, derek "rocky" turner was also tough but could be dirty aswell but i guess in them days it was a case of get your retaliation in first. graham eccles was tough and played well above his weight trevor gillmeister was hard as nails and always seemed to have harrogans number in SOO battles

cliffie Lyons! tough as old boots he was!

Had an interesting chat with an old Aussie guy in my hotel bar last week and he talked about Les Boyd. He was a Queenslander so may have been slightly biased, but he hated the guy. Thought he was (and I use his own definition) house on the pitch and a s1hihouse off the pitch. Apparantly a guy who could be as dirty and unpleasant in a bar as he was palying RL. I personaly remeber one epic clash between Boyd and Kurt Sorenson when they were at Warrington and Widnes. A telented player with a horrible temprement who had an innability to draw any line in his behaviour.

I have said this before on some similar thread years ago, but if I was going to pick a guy as the hardest player I'd seen it would have to be the man in your avatar. To know you are going to get smacked in the face off the ball after you pass and yet still run with your head up, still concentrate completely on the pass, and still delay the pass to perfection? How many "hard" men were sent off for stiff arming him late when he wasn't looking over his career (I remember one year they intorduced the sin bin it was around 14 yellow and one red card and one broken jaw)?

My List

Kevin Dick ???

Knocker Norton ???

Bill Ramsey ???

Shoey ???

Syd Hynes ???

Wally Lewis ???

Crusher Cleal ???

Rod Reddy ???

Mark Geyer was a bit of a nutter too