KeithQuinnRugby
Thinking and talking about rugby every day for 50+ years
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I always travel with a notebook to jot down the hard case or significant sporting stories I hear. My thinking is - 'these are too good to lose.' This website is a perfect place for me to publish them.
7 January 2019
*By Keith Quinn (from his book Quinn's Quips)* In my career by early 1969 I was deemed sound enough by the bosses of the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, as a very young broadcaster, to be the regular studio host of the Sports Roundup radio show. It was quite simple broadcasting work and good for a young bloke to be involved with. But one day I think I played a major role in New Zealand winning a cricket test match! Read more »
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25 November 2017
From time to time there are those rugby fans who nostalgically reflect on their time in the game; and they do it by the magic of poetry. You will find some memorable efforts on this website. This latest one comes from James Simpson of New Zealand who clearly remembers with enormous affection his days of playing in the hooking position - and his enormous respect for others who did so too. Read more »
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14 March 2017
A Poem for old rugby players........... Read more »
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31 December 2015
WHILE IN SYDNEY IN 2015 TO SEE THE PRE-WORLD CUP BLEDLISLOE CUP GAME I WAS REMINDED WHILE THERE OF MY ALL-TIME FAVOURITE BLEDISLOE CUP STORY Read more »
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21 April 2015
Until someone can enlighten me as to who authored the excellent poetic effort attached here I will publish it anonymously but with thanks. My friend Alan Trotter of Tauranga, New Zealand has sent it to me. He says it was 'sourced' to him from the United States - but who can be sure? Read more »
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19 February 2015
I can remember clearly my first trip to the far north of New Zealand. It was in the hot, lazy summer of 1966. I had just turned 20 years old. I left Wellington with two Wellington College schoolmates, Dave Henderson and Evan Purdie, on a traveling holiday. I don't know why this story has come back to me now all these years later but once I got into clattering away on this keyboard the memories came flooding back. Read more »
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28 January 2015
This story might even read like a corny sports joke - but I saw it in a pile of my notes not so long ago - its a boxing story from a long time back - and is worth retelling here I think. Read more »
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13 January 2015
This story is part of folklore at the Barbarians Club in Auckland, New Zealand. It is one which shows that even in the middle of a feisty rugby test match a mother's pride will still come shining through! Read more »
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31 December 2014
In conservative New Zealand of the 1950s the media was vastly different to what it was these days. For a start there was no television at all in New Zealand, radio was careful and conformist (being totally Government owned), the newspapers rarely gave by-lines to writers. It goes without saying that unacceptable or bad language across any of the radio communications industry was totally unheard of. But one afternoon on National Radio an All Black grabbed the microphone and let rip with what was then a total shocker! Read more »
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3 September 2014
*ATHLETIC PARK* in Wellington, New Zealand, was a much loved headquarters of the game in the Capital city for over a 100 years. It was finally closed in 1999 and the game in Wellington shifted to the Westpac Stadium in the city centre. Read more »
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The wettest day ever saw NZ beat Scotland 24-0 at the Eden Park pool! Deep puddles everywhere. The ABs swam better than their opponents!
SHARP, RICHARD
Wasps, Bristol, Cornwall and England
14 internationals for England 1960–67
2 internationals for British Isles 1962
The pale-complexioned, blond-haired flyhalf who was seen as England’s and the Lions’ ready-made replacement when Bev Risman ‘went north’.
Sharp actually broke into the England team in 1960, before Lions star Risman had followed his father to rugby league, and took full advantage of the established player’s injury. He struck a swift accord with Dicky Jeeps and was considered the key to England’s Triple Crown success, kicking a critical dropped goal against Ireland, and another against Scotland.
The following season, indecisive England selectors couldn’t choose between the two talented men available, so played both, Risman at inside centre until he turned professional.
That gave Sharp an unchallenged position, for all that 1959 Lion Phil Horrocks-Taylor was still playing, but his international career was effectively to end within little more than a year. A smashing tackle early in the 1962 Lions tour of South Africa put Sharp out of action until midway through the tour, though he recovered to lead England to a championship win in 1963.
That was his international career, save for a brief return – also as captain – when England went down heavily to Australia in 1967. Sharp was not called on again.
He later became a journalist, covering rugby for the Sunday Telegraph, and was awarded the OBE in 1986.
Who captained the British and Irish Lions on tour to New Zealand in 1977?
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