Wow. Actually surprised how little violence some people have encountered during their playing careers.
I've had:
a) ***** slapped in the face
b) guy try to break my fingers - not even in a ruck, on the sidelines after a kick or something. Just bending them back trying to break them. I threw many punches to get him to stop.
c) head stomped at a ruck, had to get stitches and have a massive scar
d) kneed in the head
e) punched who knows how many times, some of these deserved
f) my least favourite thing: late tackles. I despise these and I never do this myself. You pass the ball and two seconds later you get creamed. I'd rather be punched in the face.
g) choking at rucks or in tackles seems to be more popular lately. Not a big fan of this.
h) mini-fight with spectators from the other team who were deliberately catching the ball when kicked out of bounds and not letting me, the winger, catch or retrieve it.
I'm playing at a higher level with better referees now and of course times have changes, so there is far less of this crap now. I don't enjoy it at all.
I suspect I've encountered more violence than most as the quality of the refereeing here is often TERRIBLE and it is very easy for games to spiral out of control.
The referees don't notice things and there are often no touch judges so players cheat like crazy - holding players in the loose/at rucks, pushing people over, hands in rucks, CRAZY offsides, late hits, detaching from the scrum when the ball is still in. Smoking the kicker late. You almost don't have a choice but to take matters into your own hands.
I've also seen many games spiral into violence because of the referee's actual calls. We had one ref that called a penalty at every ruck if shoulders were EVER below hips. So every ruck. One game the ref called feeding at - I'm not kidding - every scrum. I've had refs that are immobile and miss four consecutive knockons that went 10 metres prior to a try. In a game this year the team kicked the ball straight through the endzone on a kickoff (a lot of wind) and the ref called a 22! What? And immediately awarded the other team a penalty - and that ref plays currently for that team. In a provincial semi-final the opposing 13 was ALWAYS offside and the ref said he didn't think he was offside because he works out with the guy and knows how fast he is. That guy literally ended up knocked unconscious. A girl got tackled at the 22 and the ref was so far away that he called a try as he thought she was on the try line.
I could go on ALL DAY about the terrible referees here in Canada. When touring sides come we often have an advantage because they lose their minds and get loads of penalties for talking back to the ref. When we get a good referee there is usually no violence.