"Buddha" told to shut up and drink

April 18, 2006

The Australian reports:

"Furious Waratahs players have slammed former Test forward Chris "Buddha" Handy over his "disgraceful" suggestion that NSW prop Matt Dunning is a front-row joke." ...

"Handy had lit the fuse while discussing front-row contenders for the season's first two Tests against England in June.

"Other countries rate [Dunning] as a joke," said Handy, who played the last of his six Tests in 1980, the year Australia made their first successful Bledisloe Cup defence.

"When you go into a scrum at international level you've got to have the respect of the guys you're up against and, if you don't, then you're right behind the eight-ball." ...

"[Wallaby] test centre Morgan Turinui and five-eighth Mat Rogers led return fire on Handy after he called for Dunning to be culled from the Wallabies pack in The Daily Telegraph yesterday. "

Turinui had arrived for a lunchtime training session at Woollahra Oval, his blood boiling over Handy's treatment of Dunning. An incensed Turinui said, "we'd probably prefer if 'Buddha' just turned up at the games, drank his six pack of Bundy and Coke and went home and stayed quiet. I think Queensland players would be embarrassed that a guy who's been retired for 20 years is commenting on players from other provinces."

Rogers joined the retaliatory chorus, saying of Handy's comments: "It's a disgrace. The person who commented certainly wasn't renowned as the world's greatest scrummager either."

Read the rest of the outrage here.