Cherry Pickings: New signing Thirty Six will fit in well at Kingsholm (From Gazette Series)

Gloucester Rugby column by ex-England star Alastair Hignell

9:51am Thursday 2nd February 2012 in Gloucestershire Sport

SO, the man with the best nickname in rugby is coming to Kingsholm.

Last week’s announcement that Thirty Six, as Leicester centre Billy Twelvetrees was brilliantly dubbed by Geordan Murphy the Tigers full-back who has not only retained his strong Irish accent but also his grasp of the simpler multiplication tables (one tree is tree, two trees are six, etc.) is great news for Gloucester.

There’s no doubt the boy can play – an inside centre who can score tries and kick goals, he has twice scored 29 points in a single Premiership match – as Freddie Burns, inside him for the England Saxons against the Irish Wolfhounds, and Jonny May – outside him for a significant part of the same match – have already discovered.

There’s no doubt that Leicester are miffed at seeing him go – Tigers’ Director of Rugby Richard Cockerill making some pointed comments in the media over the last few days – and there’s no doubt that he will fit in well at Gloucester.

The Cherry and Whites can no more guarantee him a place in the starting line-up than could Leicester but they can guarantee that the attack-minded former Bedford player – who can also play at outside half – will be part of the most adventurous back-line in the country.

Lawson, Burns, Twelvetrees, Trinder – with a back-three of Simpson-Daniel, Sharples and May – have the potential to hit the headlines with what could be a lethal cocktail of pace, prowess and panache.

And nick-names. Thirty Six is actually a glorious exception. Usually nick-names in sports teams are allocated on the basis of surname abbreviations (Jonno, Wilko etc.), corruptions , or a surname shared with a differently famous person. Guessing a little bit, that Gloucester back-line could equally be known as Nigella, Robbie, Thirty-Six and Tommy, with Sinbad, Ena and Maggie providing the fire-power out wide.

Thirty Six has already cemented a place in the Premiership of memorable nick-names – most of them Australian. Two of the best actually belong to the same man. Chris Whittaker, long-time scrum-half understudy to 135-cap George Gregan, was variously dubbed Splinters, for the amount of time he spent on the replacements’ bench, and Anthems, because he only got onto the pitch when they were played before the start of each test match.

Then there was Drobe, the appendage given to Bath’s Australian lock Warwick Waugh, while the same surname – and nationality – produced one of the best cricket monikers. Mark Waugh – may have only been marginally inferior in run-getting ability to his twin, the legendary Test skipper Steve, and only slightly less well-known, but he was called Afghanistan – as in the forgotten war.

In the Gloucestershire team I played for in the late 70s and early 80s, our opening batsman Paul Romaines was rather ghoulishly dubbed Human.

Let’s hope Thirty Six will be assimilated into the Kingsholm culture more smoothly than some of his predecessors. Keith Richardson, former Gloucester captain and coach – and one-time purveyor of this column – was once asked whether the Cherry-and-Whites, even more notoriously insular a couple of decades ago than they are now, would welcome outsiders from outside the parishes of Gloucester. ‘Of course we would,” he replied. “We just wouldn’t talk to them !” Do you agree with Alastair? Have your say below.

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