MAte, you're drunk. Jimmy was a true gentleman. Hard as nails, and he would be in my "hard man" pack. But "nasty"? Never in a million.

Anybody hear some Hull fans chanting 'cheat' as he went off?
I laughed, pretty good for the codheads that one

But it's true, he had a blood demijohn hidden in his cheek

Erm . . . . . who's drunk mi old flower????

I know someone who played against Jimmy a few times - played fair he says but like tackling a rock - he hurt you when he tackled you, but it also hurt when you tackled him...

Hey - if you don't like the nomination of Jimmy, lay off Bullpower & take it up with me.

However, I don't disagree with you. I was aligning myself with Bullseye's heading ("toughest"icon_wink.gif rather than the "nastiest" category that he mentioned in the text. Thompson didn't play nasty by default (though he was able to, if pushed), but he played tougher than just about anyone I've seen in the 40 or so years I've been watching. And, as BazzaBull suggests, if you wanted a team that would be intimidating to the opposition, you'd be far better off with Thompson's hard-but-fair tackling than some random biff-merchant.

To take another aspect of "tough" - have we had a forward more impervious to pain than Morrison?

This thread is a bit double edged. The two categories of `hard` and `nasty` are not necessarily mutually inclusive; Jeff Grayshon, for instance, was as hard as nails nut not nasty. On the other hand Leon Pryce could be quite nasty but..........

If looking at hard men of more recent times, would not Sir Bernard warrant a mention in dispatches?

So, who's in your 'hard but fair' pack? Bernard would be a shoe-in for that one.

JP.

Another nominee for both tough and nasty - Jim Mills.

Has got a bit nasty in the last year or so though. Always played fair before, but for some reason, he seems to have developed an angry streak lately.

Ok then give us a hard but fair pack and and nasty barsteward pack.

Mills would be a good for the barstewards.

Although not when he played for us. When he joined us he actually had a reputation as being a bit of a pussy cat. Didnt run his weight, didnt like to make the hard yards and not much of a tackler. He seemed to toughen up considerably with us but didnt really develop the nasty reputation until after he played in aus.

If it's not ungracious of me to suggest so, you may have a small advantage of age over me here. I know that I definitely saw Jim Mills playing for us, but I don't actually [iremember[/i him playing, as I was very young. By the time he was back in the UK, I remember him well. Seem to remember we had another disappointing prop who went on to be great for Widnes - Brian Hogan. We're getting off topic there, though, as I wouldn't put him in the top bracked for either toughness or nastiness for either team.

Hard but fair:

Jimmy Thompson
Tony Fisher
Frank Whitcombe
Trevor Foster
Jamie Peacock
Len Casey


Hard and not necessarily all that fair on occasions. Allegedly.

Kelvin Skerrett
James Lowes
Brian McDermott
Alan Rathbone
Karl Fairbank
Frank Foster

thought that too - especially do of Len.

Yeh but you can only have 6 in a pack, Len has to be in somewhere, and Frank Foster is reputedly the hardest bugger who ever ran on a rugby field, so he has to go in.

Tony Fisher deserves to be if only for giving the best one line interview I've heard after starring for GB against Australia at Odsal in 1979:

Radio Leeds interviewer "What were your tactics today Tony?"

TF " I just wanted to inflict more pain on them than they inflicted on me"

Fisher deserves a category all of his own!

My stepdad goes on about Ian Van Bellen a lot. Was he not a forward? Sounds like he was a bit mean.

Yes he was a prop. His nickname was Selwyn, after the TV character Selwyn Froggatt played by Bill Maynard. No he wasn`t mean, he was a big lad who put created havoc whenever he ran at opponents but he didn`t have a nasty bone in his body to be honest. Think along the lines of Paul Anderson, though probably not quite as effective.

paul dixon could be a bit naughty
i remember him clotheslining jonathan davies and as davies fell into a heap he just turned round too the ref and held his arm out and mouthed "what" as though he'd done nothing wrong

He's gone up in my estimation . . . . Jonathan Davies / BBC commentators / PAH!