The five hardest rugby players in history have been named

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.

Palmie’s sad clown face and enormous broken nose gave him the air of a club-house character rather than a rugby player, but he was one of the most callous and nasty players of a tough and dirty era.

This here was one of the absolute hardest bastards to ever lace up boots. Bobby Windsor, known affectionately as “The Iron Duke,” was one tough sonuva. The Pontypool, Wales, and Lions legend gave everything he had for the cause, and much more, to boot.

The former England captain was as tough as they come, once having to leave the field to have a cut to his eye tended to before returning to the field moments later.

Kruger was South Africa's Player of the Year in 1995, when he helped lead the team to a World Cup victory which helped bring together whites and blacks as the country emerged from the divisions of the apartheid era. He died following a long battle with brain cancer in 2010.

His wild hair and misshapen nose bear testament to his hammering away at the breakdown coalface as a player who could perform with distinction across all three back-row positions.