Months late to chiming in on this but I would say that age group were still getting uni degrees whilst playing rugby. Or at least were enrolled in courses with the intent to do so, whether they graduated or not.Niegs wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2024 4:12 pm2005 wasn't just a few years ago then?
I'm a few years off, but I meant the first generation who went straight from school into rugby with no uni / trade quals. I don't know if Wilkinson ever took a class at Durham, but didn't a lot of his generation have something else going for them? Lewsey was famously Army, but looking at some others, maybe all those born around 77-80 were the first true pros in that regard?
I went to uni in Leicester in the late 90s and I saw Geordan Murphy in the library all the time.
Those Tigers teams were such a cross section - front row working class, Garforth is a scaffolder to this day, Johnno was slightly more middle class, Dad was a scientist or engineer. Ben Kay, Will Greenwood, Stimson from solidly middle class north West backgrounds, Lewis Moody went to Oakham. Then Backy and most of the rest of the East Mids/Coventry contingent like Leon Lloyd were working class.
When you factor in how that era straddled the amateur/pro divide and you throw in Joel Stransky, Pat Howard, Fritz Van Heerden, Austin Healey (and managed by a copper, Deano) it's hard to imagine such a wildly successful group with such completely different backgrounds.