In an interview for BBC 5 Live Sport Special 'Inside the Dressing Room', former England scrum-half Matt Dawson told the tale of his initiation ceremony with the Baa-Baas.
Dawson was spanked with a cactus by 6' 10" former Wales second-row Derwyn Jones during a tour in Zimbabwe in 1994. Teammate Nick Beal ended up removing the plant's spines from Dawson's rear later that evening.
For the Ba-Ba's when I toured with them to Zimbabwe I had my backside spanked by a cactus. Not only that, my best mate Nick Beal had to do it.
I'm bent over a chair with my trousers down by my ankles with a load of Barbarians and management having a good old laugh. This cactus is 6ft high with a big 2ft leaf at the end of it.
Nick was obviously not spanking me because it would have done me some serious damage, he's pathetically tapping my backside so Derwyn Jones, the Welsh second row, just pushed him out of the way and started whacking my backside and when we went back to our room Nick had to pull the splinters out.
The story was previously told in Matt Dawson's autobiography 'Nine Lives'. Derwyn Jones claims that there were some mitigating circumstances which could somewhat diminish his culpability in the deed, mainly that there was drink taken.
I think we were all a bit worse for drink and I can't remember much about it now.
It was a kangaroo court we hold at every tour and it was a bit of tomfoolery when rugby was still an amateur game.
Dawson refused to play for the Barbarians against following the incident.
His initiation was certainly a lot more painful than David Beckham's hazing at Man Utd.
