Almost seven years ago, a friend who had played Number 8 for my team at university had a bullet buried in the back of his head from point-blank range.

Rich Wild had gone off to Iraq in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's downfall in the hope of making his name as a freelance foreign correspondent. It ended in his own murder by an unknown gunman outside the Baghdad Museum.

Then in 2007 another member of our unbeaten league-winning side also died unexpectedly. Andrew Dawson was playing for Oxford Harlequins' second team against High Wycombe when he suddenly collapsed.

Members of both sides tried to resuscitate him on the pitch, but to no avail. A post-mortem examination could shed no light on what had caused his death, although Andrew had previously been diagnosed with a heart problem.

Former team-mates realised something had to be done to remember not only two men who had been a joy to play with but two men whose lives had been cruelly cut off in their 20s.

And so, rather than making the trip to the North East at the weekend for Bath's match in Newcastle, I ended up heading to my old college for the second Wild-Dawson memorial game.

Rugby can foster a peculiar camaraderie between men. There is the stereotypical view of boisterous blokes in blazers staggering around bars and throwing yards of bitter down their necks, and I won't deny there isn't occasionally still a kernel of truth in that perception.

But the atmosphere that persisted through the Jesus College, Cambridge team of 19990-2000 was an altogether milder one. Sure, we celebrated the wins but the happiest memories from that time aren't of post-match knees-ups – they are of the pure joy of running round a field with a set of 20 or so blokes who were enjoying their rugby as much as you were.

Not everyone is lucky enough to play in a side – at whatever level, in whatever sport – where there is a sense of unity and harmony that permeates everything that the squad does together.

And whether it was training, playing or post-match drinks and chips in our local, we were as tight a set of blokes as you could hope for.

We were well-drilled by a former coach of the Australian Navy, who had come over to England on a post-graduate course. This guy, Rob, was something of a star. His training sessions were sprinkled with all manner of dubious physiological explanations and bizarre expressions, sometimes both delivered at the same time.

The pick of them all was an explanation that if you didn't enter a ruck in a "cruciform" posture your energy would "dissipate into the ether".

Anyway, the Wild-Dawson Memorial match pitted the current college XV against the old boys. It's fair to say us oldsters were a little disorganised defensively – Rob would have been apoplectic had he been there – but we butchered the young whipper-snappers up front.

The game averaged a point a minute and I even managed to score myself with a 'classic' winger's finish. But the youngsters had the last laugh, their man of the match ghosting through midfield to steal victory with the last play of the game.

It was a wonderful day. And if I've indulged myself a bit in the course of this article, I make no apologies.

Because this one is for Rich and Andy.