Rugby's finest rushed to the front and died heroes with VCs galore

Brendan Gallagher continues his expert and authorative look at the history of Rugby Union

- Brendan Gallagher

FOR three decades or more before 1914 the young men of Britain and its extended Empire had been fighting generally good natured battles against each other on the rugby field – “sport is war minus the shooting” as Orwell once famously observed – but with the outbreak of World War One life suddenly became deadly serious.

As some of the fittest, strongest and most able-bodied men in the land, rugby players were rightly expected to lead the charge, indeed it was their patriotic duty. Come the moment of truth rugby did not duck that challenge and when the madness ceased that unhesitating call to arms was worn as a badge of honour by the sport.

There had already been a minor dress rehearsal – although it didn’t seem minor at the time – with the Second Boer War, a gruelling conflict in South Africa which had seen legions of rugby players enlist. Two of the four VCs won by international rugby players were awarded during the Boer War.

The rumbustious Wanderers and Ireland forward Thomas Crean, who had starred in the Lions 3-1 series win in South Africa in 1896, was back there just a few years later fighting rather than playing for Britain with Ireland being part of Britain at the time. On December 18, 1901, during the action at Tygerkloof Spruit, Surgeon Captain Crean, although wounded himself, continued to attend to the wounded under heavy fire at only 150-yards range. He did not stop until hit a second time, when he was seriously wounded.