In this article I argue that sports of violence, such as rugby union, can provide a discursive space that allows for production and resistance to dominant discourses of manliness. I do so, in part, by presenting narratives of self to reveal how competing discourses surrounded my youth participation in rugby union in a manner that made it difficult to maintain a coherent sense of self. Through these narratives, I hope that readers can empathize with the tensions and contradictions I faced as a `rugby boy'. In addition, I draw on Foucaultian concepts to illustrate how the discourses that initially helped constitute my sense of self also provided a starting point for my eventual resistance against hypermasculine values. In this sense, I highlight how relationships between discourse, power and subjectivities are unstable.
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