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'You are literally stirring a monster' - How a 135kg Munster man mountain 'popped' Joe Marler's ribs

Joe Marler in 2011 (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

A former teammate of Joe Marler has told a brilliant story of how a young Marler, eager to impress early in his career, bit off more than he could chew playing against Munster. Harlequins secondrow Olly Kohn and Jordan Turner-Hall were recalling their historic win over Munster in Limerick in the European Challenge Cup. The visitors had been written off before heading to Ireland in 2011, going in as massive underdogs to the rugby fortress that is Thomond Park.

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Kohn takes up the story: “One thing that really stands out to me that day, early on the game, you had this 18, 19-year-old young Buck in Joe Marler, who no one really knew about.

“He had one of his horrific haircuts. But he had this ridiculous attitude: really, really aggro. Really aggressive. No one knew who he was and he had a mohawk.

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Marler was up against 6’5, 135kg Munster tighthead Tony Buckley, the heaviest player to ever lineout for Munster.

“He was up against this absolute beast in Tony Buckley, who was a ginormous man at tighthead. So the scrum pops up (I’m behind Marler) and Marler was just like ‘I’m going to go for this guy. At the moment I’m not a particularly great scrummager technically, but I’m just going to go for him’. So he gets in his face and just gives him some real good chat.

“I’m like ‘you’re literally stirring a monster’. Next minute Tony Buckley goes down and gets in the perfect position and just pops every single one of Marler’s ribs up. You just hear ‘brrrrrup’. Marler hits the deck and is in all sorts of problems. Fair play to him, he carries on, but that was a mistake.”

Marler responded to the story on Twitter, jokingly pointing the finger at Kohn. ‘I blame the lack of support from behind…’.

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Harlequins became, at the time of the game in 2011, only the second team to win at the stadium in European competition in 16 years. Marler, of course, has gone on to a stellar and colourful career for Harlequins and England.

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JW 19 minutes ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Where? I remember saying "unders"? The LNR was formed by the FFR, if I said that in a way that meant the 'pro' side of the game didn't have an equal representation/say as the 'amateur' side (FFR remit) that was not my intent.


But also, as it is the governing body, it also has more responsibility. As long as WR looks at FFR as the running body for rugby in France, that 'power' will remain. If the LNR refuses to govern their clubs use of players to enable a request by FFR (from WR) to ensure it's players are able to compete in International rugby takes place they will simply remove their participation. If the players complain to the France's body, either of their health and safety concerns (through playing too many 'minutes' etc) or that they are not allowed to be part in matches of national interest, my understanding is action can be taken against the LNR like it could be any other body/business. I see where you're coming from now re EPCR and the shake up they gave it, yes, that wasn't meant to be a separate statement to say that FFR can threaten them with EPCR expulsion by itself, simply that it would be a strong repercussion for those teams to be removed (no one would want them after the above).


You keep bringing up these other things I cannot understand why. Again, do you think if the LNR were not acting responsibly they would be able to get away with whatever they want (the attitude of these posters saying "they pay the players")? You may deem what theyre doing currently as being irresponsible but most do not. Countries like New Zealand have not even complained about it because they've never had it different, never got things like windfall TV contracts from France, so they can't complain because theyre not missing out on anything. Sure, if the French kept doing things like withholding million dollar game payments, or causing millions of dollars of devaluation in rights, they these things I'm outlining would be taking place. That's not the case currently however, no one here really cares what the French do. It's upto them to sort themselves out if they're not happy. Now, that said, if they did make it obvious to World Rugby that they were never going to send the French side away (like they possibly did stating their intent to exclude 20 targeted players) in July, well then they would simply be given XV fixtures against tier 2 sides during that window and the FFR would need to do things like the 50/50 revenue split to get big teams visiting in Nov.

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