When was the last time a Test player from a Tier 1 nation was allowed to get himself into that kind of state?

Andy Goode or Weepu?

And ROG wasn't much better in a different kind of way.

Inspiring fatties the world over

Was it really necessary to post a life size picture of Goode?

Spare a thought for Jack Nowell

Goode sprung to mind but I didn't mention him because he wasn't playing Test rugby. He was actually meant to be retired when he signed for Newcastle so he could be forgiven a bit of middle aged spread. In addition, his podcast is good craic and everyone knows if you're a good laugh you can get away with an extra pound or two.

Basta was captain at one stage and he has put on even more weight since.

Weepu is a good shout.

Well, Mako has a gunt, as does Jamie George. Remember Fatt Dunning?

Technically it’s a gock

Tbf to Weepu it wasn’t until after the 2011 RWC that he let himself get into Bastard/Goode territory.

I don't know whether anyone should be thanking Wales, or cursing us, but I can't help but feel that is debut performance (against Wales) led France to believe that he was a good shout as an international, and maybe contributed on a wider level to their love of big unfit fatties.

The ultimate irony being that his defence was pretty shit if you analyse his gameplay on that day. He was lauded at the time for stopping Jamie Roberts several time (which he did), but he did it by flying up out of the line leaving huge doglegs. Had Wales had a bit more about them (this was 2009, so Gatland was still very much in bosh mode with his centres), then one or two tip passes to a man on Roberts' shoulder would have shredded France that day.

Rodney Blake, Uini Atonio, Will Skelton.

To be fair to Skelton, now he's at a professional club he's in pretty good shape

And that pic is effectively from his retirement from proper pro rugby, he got fat in the ABs, but not that fat.

Matt Dunning wasn't any worse than the other two. Had one of those fat heads but was reasonably trim for a modern prop. Given the way he looks now, I imagine he was eating a ton just to maintain professional prop size ...




Chris Budgen on the other hand ...


https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/ch ... d676830982

All that military training

Wasn't it Micky Quinn about whom they used to say that the Irish team warm up was to run around him? Lovely bloke, but rather corpulent when I first saw him.

Who was that Welsh prop with the hair of a Roman god?

Did he get his kit from a Marquee company ?

Someone post the clip of Ricky Janurie making a break for a lower League French team.

But they didn't which would've been fairly obvious so he knew what he was doing.

Looks like he swapped lower body with a smaller lad.

He used to be 6ft tall; but weight+gravity ......

He's ludicrously strong and wide. He propped for me in one game. Initially I tried to bind properly but realised that my hand barely reached his neck, so left it to him.

Nice bloke as well

I do wonder whether Bastareaud should have played in a different position.

Had he been trained as a prop or hooker early in his career, he could have potentially have been a top player.

As it is, I think he is a better player than he gets credit for, but was always going to be limited to being one dimensional by his size/lack of pace/fitness.

Bastareaud plays well around the right players. After the 2015 RWC I was watching Top 14 highlights and the voiceover bloke said he passed more in this Toulon match than he did in the whole RWC. That’s an indictment. Giteau or Mermoz at 12 got him in to space. Teams that went wide in attack got swallowed up out wide as he will isolate them and win a penalty. This forced teams to attack narrower or have a wide forward to get him off his feet. I don’t see this from France.

I was going to say ... that bloke looks like he's about 48 ... and I looked him. 46 and still playing high level rugby. FFS fair go to the big man.

Edit ... okay I see he's not playing anymore. Retired at about 40, which is still pretty good. But he looks older than that.

You're right. Dunning really wasn't any fatter than your average International prop at the time, hejust has a big head and (when he was fat) had massive jowls and a chubby baby face that made him look fatter than he really was. If you substituted a normal looking head on this photo he would look just like a stocky, strong bloke, not a big fatso.

You were correct the first time. I saw him playing for Bedwas in a televised game in the Welsh Principality Premiership a few weeks ago. Still going strong...

Are we looking at the same picture?

Cant have a thread about fatties without Chunk.

Adam Jones, provided you mean Roman Gods who like pies

Did Dunning get his stomach stapled?

I would guess not.

It has some bad, permanent downsides that go with the upside of shedding weight. Unless genuinely morbid (which he was not) that's not really a path you'd want to be taking.

French sporting prowess

Didn't dunning have quite serious mental health issues?

Dunno.

Maybe you are thinking of Clyde Rathbone?

It wasn't just Wales. He was a very effective young player with a massive amount of power and impact that just needed those rough edges - including defensively - smoothing out to be a top class international centre.

The shame is that instead of developing, he just relied on his size. As he gets less effective the answer has not been to work on his all-round game, it's been to keep getting bigger.

He's still effective enough as a bosher to keep getting away with it, but it's a shame that he's so far short of the player he could have been if the size had been in addition to rather than instead of an all-round game.