Reading a thread all about the late great Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins over on the SinBin got me thinking.

Have we got any real 'characters' playing Rugby League these days?

Alex Higgins was probably the only bloke that could make a snoreathon 'sport' like snooker (whereby the aim is to hit a few coloured balls down holes on a table using a stick) interesting. Alex would think nothing of smashing all the balls down in record time whilst drinking beer, smoking like a train and relieving himself into one of the plant displays before being seen later staggering out of a nightclub at 3am with a couple of women on each arm.

Legend.

We have recently had people like Julian 'Poo in the shoe' O'Neill and Craig Gower throwing up some mildly amusing off field incidents......and of course Willie Mason and SBW... but thats about it. Even that selection look like boy scouts compared to past players like John 'Dallas' Donnelly' and Tommy Raudonikis.

All we seem to have these days are blokes like Kevin Sinfield... a man so boring he could send a glass eye to sleep.

Yes... I accept the game has become more professional.

But surely there must be some 'characters' left in our game???

Ben Cockayne has his moments, on and off the field!

Stanley Gene was a character for all the right reasons.

There's been a few villains around like Terry Newton, the players opposition fans love to hate.

I guess so

I just mean the sort of people that you just KNOW you would have fun with if you went on a big night out with them.

Good topic ,no not many these days due to the professional nature I guess,as an aside can anyone remember Neil holding of saints doing impressions of frank Spencer on an aftermath interview on scrumdown on a Friday night in the 80's total character he was

Have to be honest I don't know him... but thats the sort of thing I mean

Sean Long!

There are lots of characters about but its not as easy to be a character nowadays.

Supporters complain about a lack of character but at the same time they jump up and down crying at the first sign of a player doing anything unprofessional. Especially if their team is going through a bad patch.

If your team is winning your allowed to be seen out on the lash enjoying yourself, if your team isn't performing and your seen out having a pint or two your a waste of space. There are some players who don't lead the right lifestyle but they would have been classed as characters in the past. Can't have it both ways can we?

He said "characters" not "thugs".

If you are talking about the same Alex Higgins who head butted an official who asked him to take a drug test then I'm not too sure we are worse off as sport without 'characters' like that

Reading down this thread, most of the characters mentioned are just @rseholes... I wouldn't want to go out for drink with any of them

Can you name some of these so called 'characters' from different sports. I'm far too young and uninterested in snooker to know who Alex Higgins was.

Are we talking about people like Ashley Cole, John Terry, Danny Cipriani, Andrew Flintoff etc? If so the the simple matter is that the media are just not interested in what a group of northern rugby players are doing in their spare time.

For all we know that our players are getting up to mischief far worse than any of the above mentioned. But they don't have paparazzi following them 24/7 because they are not household names across the country. The worst we have had over the past few years in this country is Sean Long and Martin Gleeson's betting scandal, and Keith Senior selling his medals on eBay. These players just don't make headlines, and tabloids would rather waste column inches reporting every time Katie Price and Kerry Katona fart.

Also with the introduction to full time professionalism more young players are told how to conduct themselves off the field as not to give themselves or the club a bad name where sponsors are so important financially. They don't want to be associated with a club or player with a bad reputation.

Of course the opposite happens in Australia. Every time an Aussie player chats to a woman or sets foot in a bar they are punished by their club, or the NRL, when its reported in the media.

People like

DK Lillee

Merv Hughes

James Hunt

Barry Sheene

Eric Cantona


All characters for different reasons....all increased peoples awareness about their sports.


Saw a great doco about Barry Sheene once

Loved a drink, a smoke......and a root.

And that was just in his motorhome in between races.


What a legend!

No wonder he went to live in Australia.... now thats the kind of pommie we welcome to live in Australia with open arms!



Rugby League is screaming out for a personality

Ryan Mcgoldrick is certainly a character. There was a page spread in one of the National Papers last week. He as an interesting collection of vehicles, and most of his body is covered in tattoos!

Keith Senior

We were chatting about exactly this subject at lunchtime. We were talking about George Best and Rodney Marsh playing for Fulham in the 70's and tackling each other to get the ball even though they were on the same side. Ian Botham, Stan Bowles, Frank Worthington, Brian Clough, Alex Murphy. Sorry, I only converted to RL at a late stage. I remember as a kid the TV Superstars show being a real showcase for RL players and Des Drummond and Keith Fielding featured in a big way.

Brian Carney I think would be fierce craic on a night out.

Is that Keith Senior?

Standing around in a muddy field with tight pants and a horse.

This is exactly my point.

Even his horse looks bored.


I want to see players who can wind the crowd up with heaps of arrogant posturing and gestures before scoring the winning try and saying how easy the match was in the post match interview then going out on a good session down the Walkabout, leaving in the early hours with 2 or 3 filthy women and taking them home in a stolen taxi before doing several lines of columbian, rooting the lot of them in a drug fuelled frenzy and filming the whole thing and posting it on youtube.

Or alternatively you could just stand around in a muddy field with a horse then go home and auction all your possessions on ebay.