I was not blessed with speed, agility or grace, and so I have always been doomed to the front row.
Still play for my local side here in the UK - Pilkington's Recreational. Have had the honour of representing my county, Lancashire, and Great Britain at amateur level.
The story I most fondly remember was when I was around 16 years old and I was playing something like only my 3rd game at u18s level and it was against our most bitter rivals away from home. And my dad, who would always give me this pep talk on the way to a match, turned to me in the car and he said; "Son, there's a lad who plays for this team in the front row, and I work with his dad... don't let me have to go in to the office on Monday morning having had this guy outplay you". When we arrived at the ground I turned to him and said which one is he Dad; "that's him over there".
196cm 127kg. Absolute monster. He was warming up by tackling the post from 10yards out. I turned to my dad as if to say; "are you serious?". He shrugged.
We had turned up with a team essentially full of kids who had just been promoted from the 16's, whereas they had a team full of 18 year olds who were in the last year at this level. Before the game in the changing rooms they were banging on the walls and the doors a they went past shouting what they were gonna do to us, and that didn't stop as we went out on to the field with the crowd. Lot of lads showed some real balls that day to turn up and play well against an older team in pretty intimidating circumstances.
So we got in to the game, and we were up by 10 in the second half. I was at second marker and I saw this guy lining up for a hit-up and I thought I'm gonna fly out and hit him as hard as I can, so I shot straight out, but he hit an under's line towards my inside shoulder, so I cocked my shoulder (back when the shoulder charge was allowed) and through myself back towards him with everything I had, caught him really sweet under the ball and I absolutely flattened him, he landed flat on his back. And the place just went silent, all the shouting from the crowd stopped. I lost my cool a bit and told him to go f*** himself. But I forgot that because he had knocked on we would have to scrum down moments later, he did not take his eyes off me when we packed down, it was the longest 25 minutes of my life after that. He ran it back at me time and time again. We managed to hang on for the win though so it was all worth it in the end, and my old man was more than happy to go in to work on Monday. No better feeling than making the old man proud.