As we know Kick off is getting nigh. The rain that’s been falling on my skin all week in Hamp prior to this meeting of rugby greats wasn’t water from the clouds but yet tears from all the gods, angels and saints in heaven mourning as they know how much life is going to be ended at will tonight. For this November eve will be a night like no other. Tonight when the moon is high and the flood lights have replaced the long gone sun, is when you men can reach out and snatch immortality. Tonight is a night when us Narms finest come together and the corners of our very Earth shake in fear and the oceans and seas roar in expectation. Tonight I wish you to ask yourself if you’re really alive, for It is only when we bleed that we know we are truly alive, my Narm soldiers, everyone lives but so few are actually alive, what is being alive? alive is that first tackle, alive is that first ruck maul and scrum, alive is pounding through legions of the enemy’s defence with you comrades firmly behind, alive is having one hand with its middle finger up and the other hand on your balls, no friends i have no desire to live like a human because the 23/11/11 is the eve, me and 14 other men take to a field, we pass, we tackle, we crash, we cry, we laugh, we bleed and together through passion might and skill we will win. We will arrive on the field violently and will take no prisoners, we will tear ourselves and everything around us to pieces for the pride of Narm. Sure a few of us may fall, a few of us may not survive, but many years from now, on our death beds, i bet, in fact no i know, you would trade every day from this to that for one more chance to take to the field with them 14 men you felt alive with. Now warm up safe but intensely my fellow soldiers for when we return to this hostile chamber of hell fire we will don the crest of honour, strap up the boots of courage as we cease being individuals and become one.
SNM