MY RUGBY WORLD

THE COMIC ON RUGBY 06, STAND-UP WITH JAMES RYAN AND PULLING HIS HAIR OUT WATCHING ITALY

- JOE ROBINSON

What is your first rugby memory? It will have been my first-ever rugby training when I was 11. I'm from Northern Ireland and surprise, surprise, like everything else it's politicised. It was at Malone RFC.

People from Belfast think it's a posh rugby team because the area of Malone is swanky. That's not where the club is, it's in a rough part of East Belfast. The rest of the league know them as 'The Bin Men'. I'd have probably gone to Ravenhill for an Ulster game at that point too. I went to Ulster and then Ipswich football games as that's where my mum lived.

You mentioned that rugby was politicised? Yes. So I grew up as a Catholic but my parents were keen I played non-Catholic sports, because it's very easy to grow up and not meet a Protestant.

I guess that sounds mad but if you go to Catholic schools and just play Gaelic Football and hurling, you won't meet a Protestant until you go to university. Rugby and boy scouts are very Protestant in Belfast and I did both.

How was that first training session at Malone RFC? At Christmas when I was 11, I got obsessed with NikeID, where you could design your own boots. I spent days designing them for rugby. They were green, red and white because I was obsessed with being half-Italian then. They had my name on them too.