Jerry Collins: 'We'll need another plate!'Ask any rugby player who they'd least like to meet down a dark alley and
Jerry Collins would either top, or sit a close close second behind Sebastien Chabal. This week we celebrate his 28th birthday.
One of the most destructive tacklers in the game and a headless chicken in the loose, the sight of the former All-Black blindside [with a pint of Guinness for a haircut] running at opposition lines without a care for limb, bone or his sanity was a lethal feature of the rugby world.
As well as knocking out Colin Charvis in 2003 and spending pre-season training as a dustbin man [taking it far too literally on the field too], Collins captained the All-Blacks on three of his 48 caps, scoring five tries in total.
Also this week, Britain raises a glass or two of Mulled wine to 1605 gunpowder-plotter Guy Fawkes - any excuse for a piss-up. Elsewhere, America handed one of its greatest presidents the ultimate power in 1860, when a sweep in the north led former Illinois farm boy Abraham Lincoln into the White House. Needless to say, he was more popular than Bill 'show me the ladies' Clinton (inducted in 1996, second term).
And it's
Buon Compleanno! while toasting a glass of Chianti to the most violent man on an English rugby pitch, Danny Grewock (36); his polar-opposite, Tom Croft (23); England wing and general nice bloke, Paul Sackey (29); and Welsh man-mountain Jamie Roberts (22)