@Victor-Meldrew said in RIP Tiny Hill:
Anyone Meads was in awe of had to be a very, very special player.
Heard a story that Tiny Hill was photographed wearing shoulder pads (they were for protecting an injury) during a Lions tour and the Lions management/UK press made a big thing about how soft he was.
Went well, apparently.....
Here is the explanation:
Hill was feared so much he resorted to wearing shoulder pads, not to protect himself, but to limit the damage he caused the opposition and his teammates at training.
"I have a long bone in the shoulder that points out," Hill says.
"I used to drive a wedge into players I tackled and my team mates would moan and grizzle about being hurt all the time, so Allan Elsom brought these rubber pads along and I wore them for the rest of my career.
He was a tough nut:
Hill was surprisingly dropped for the second test in Wellington, despite playing in Canterbury's 9-6 victory over the tourists. Hill believes his retaliation to an assault by prop Chris Koch was the reason he was discarded. Hill decided to settle things in the lineout.
"I said to Bob Duff to move up to No 2 and he said, 'What are you on about?’ I said, ‘just do it’, and when the ball went in I turned to Chris Koch and, whack, whack, I let him have a few.
"The South Africans immediately started yelling. But not Koch. He was on the ground."