Respected rugby scribe Brendan Gallagher has continued his fascinating series in which he ranks players from down the years. This time it’s players who promised/deserved more.
We’ll have our own look through his top 10, but to read the full article head over and subscribe to the UK’s best-selling rugby publication, on-sale every Sunday.
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10. Andrew Harriman (Harlequins & England)
Harriman was known as ‘The Prince’ was one of the quickest and most exciting runners of his generation. However, he won just one Test cap in 1988 but was the player of the tournament when England won the World Sevens Championship in 1993.
9. K. G. MacLeod (Scotland)
He was only seventeen when first capped for Scotland against New Zealand, and was at Fettes College. He then went to Cambridge University and played for their rugby team, winning nine more international caps at the time. He retired aged 21 at the urging of his father, because his two elder brothers had been seriously injured playing rugby.
8. James Peters (Plymouth & England)
He is notable as the first black man to play rugby union for England.
In 1906, England played South Africa for the first time; and Peters was withdrawn from the England squad after the South Africans objected to playing against a black player.
In 1910 Peters lost three fingers in a dockyard accident, but continued to play until 1912. It was not injury, but it was politics that in the end forced Peters out of rugby union. Wronger person, wrong place, wrong time.
