Some more position definitions, in scrum formation:


                            Opposition


|          Loose-head prop | Hooker | Tight-head prop
|
| Open-side flanker | Second Row | Second Row | Blind-side flanker
|
|                            Number 8
|


                                    Scrum-half

                                    Stand-off (or Outside-half)

                              Centre

                        Centre

                   Winger                           Winger


                               Full-back

The loose-head prop has one side of his head in the open air, while the other is pressed against the side of the opposing tight-head prop. The tight-head prop is meanwhile having both sides of his neck and face sandpapered by the opposing loose-head prop and hooker, both of whom of course gave up shaving at least three days before the game. (The resulting rash is known as "scrum-pox").

The hooker is so called, not because of any occupation off the pitch, but because he "hooks" the ball out of the tunnel between the opposing front-row forwards' feet, back towards his own side. (A digression here; when I first joined my local club, I gave a telephone number with one digit wrong. For several weeks, I would assume that I had not been selected, and stroll into the club in mid-afternoon, expecting to be a spectator. I would be greeted with shouts of "Where were you ? You were supposed to be playing away !" Then one day an ex-girlfriend tried to ring me to wish me a happy birthday, and dialled the same wrong number. A woman answered, and once explanations and apologies were out of the way, the unknown lady said, "You've solved one riddle for me. Every Saturday lunchtime, the phone rings, and some rough male voice at the other end shouts, 'You get your a**e down here, you're hooking for the first fifteen!'")


If I were the marrying kind,
Which, thank the Lord I'm not sir.
The kind of girl that I would wed
Would be a prop-forward's daughter.
She'd bind tight, I'd bind tight.
We'd both bind tight together.
We'd be alright in the middle of the night,
Binding tight together.