Rugby League
Your Stories

Being a Wakefield boy I have to give my 3pts to Derek Turner.

Derek Turner has a removal business in Ossett just outside Wakefield. Chucking sofas and double beds around must be dead easy for him after a few test matches spent sorting out the Aussie pack

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The clubs Rocky played for are Ossett rugby union, Hull Kingston Rovers, Oldham and Wakefield Trinity. Plus Yorkshire, England and Great Britain. He later coached at Castleford.

Once a baby faced Mal Reilly told him he had just played a great game, Rocky said you don't even look like a forward and punched him in the nose.

Now you look like a league forward said Rocky.

Last of the really hard men in the bash and barge days of league.

He said of the 1967 GB test pack to play Australia that he could 'do' everyone of them with one hand tied behind his back.

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During the filming of the classic movie "this sporting life" starring the late Richard Harris, which was filmed at Wakefield Trinity's Belle Vue ground.

There is a scene where Harris's character is roughed up at the back of a scrum.

Before the scene, Which was filmed using the great Trinity players of the sixties, the Director asked Turner to make it look realistic.

As Harris emerged from the opposite Loose Forward position he was laid out cold by Turner and filming had to be postponed until Harris was back on his feet

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Wembley dressing room 1963, Trinity Director enters and offers the player 3 & 6 for bonus for winning.

Gert Coetzer, A solid,tough South African asks what they get for losing.

Everyone stops! No talking! the constant tapping of turners studs on the dressing room floor has come to a sudden stop!

Coetzer knows he's said the wrong thing.

Coezer is the last man to leave the dressing room.

Story is that Turner has explained "we don't talk of losing in my dressing room"

Trinity go on to beat Wigan and win the Challenge cup!

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My Grandad, George Scott, was a ref during the 50's and 60's, and of all the players he had seen the hardest was undoubtedly Rocky Turner.

Before one game he over heard Turner passing on some good advice to one of the younger Trinity players, 'Lad, if your gonna get yourself sent off make sure the other bloke gets carried off'.

Surely a contender for the www.eraofthebiff.com pledge.

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courtesy of Tony Adams great book The Hitmen - A tribute to League's tough guys.

He face many rugged opponents in his day, but nont troubled him more than noted English hard man Derek Turner.

"He was the hardest player I faced" Wilson said after his retirement. "One day he caught me around the throat with a stiff arm and I thought he'd taken my head off."

Former Saints, NSW and Australian team-mate Johnny Raper still remembers that tackle

"It was a killer and I think that was the only time I ever saw Blueys legs buckle" Raper says. "He was really stung by the blow and was gone for a while. But, to his credit, he came back for more later in the game and gave Turner as good as he got."

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Your worthy contributor who told us about Rocky Turner laying out big Richard Harris while filming "This Sporting Life" may have it right, but I seem to remember it was actually Stanley Baker, one of acting's hard men himself, who figured in the incident.

After being knocked out by Derek and having lost two teeth, he quit the movie, with words like "Stuff this for a game of soldiers - this is too tough for me" Richard Harris was the next choice. And it made his name.

Can anyone put the record straight on this one?

Glad to hear Rocky's still going strong. I'm a long-standing Hull KR supporter - from the age of 5 - but just too young to have seen him play for us.

Those were the days!

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Going back to stories about the Biff era. A good one was told to me by Brian Lockwood. In the 60's they had the John Player competition and the man of the match got an award. Brian was about 20 and at Castleford; playing in the same pack as Malcom Reilly and Dennis Hartley. Rocky Turner was the coach. Brian said that in training one night, Turner was laying down the law and was lecturing Malcom and Brian. Brian could see what was going to happen next and started running just as Turner copped Malcolm with a shot. Not long after, at Bramley, Brian got a man of the match award. Feeling full of himself he went up the steps as it was in those to the dressing rooms at Bramley. Waiting for him at the top and glaring was Turner, who said to him "you think you're good, but I've shit better than you." With that he hit Brian with a haymaker that sent him all the way down the steps. All the players were scared shitless of him; and Malcom always says that his aggression was part of the way he was brought up as a young player under Turner. Mind you I don't think Malcom needed much encouragement when it came to the biff.

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Thursday 20th December 2007.

Rocky Turner and his son Darren have today moved my ageing in-laws to their new home.

Rocky is still moving stuff around at the ripe age of 75.

He still looks fitter than most of us.

Long may it be so.

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