the very competitive Joinville Battalion of the French Armed Forces.On 29 December 1981 he played against Tony Shaw's Australian Wallabies at Aldershot Military Stadium. Whitcombe played against Canada at the US Portsmouth RFC on 14 October on their 1983 tour on England. On 30 November 1985, Buck Shelford's New Zealand Combined Services team at Devonport Services R.F.C. and he played against Australia at Aldershot Military Stadium on 27 October 1984 against Andrew Slack's Wallabie team. Club rugby career Whitcombe joined Leicester Tigers in July 1981. Tigers' coach Chalkie White who was a unique, outspoken coach who demanded high levels of fitness, discipline and progressive rugby, selected him for his first game for the club against Northampton Saints away, on 16 October, he made his home début the following week against Swansea on 24 October at Welford Road and scored a try. Martin represented Leicester Tigers against the Australian Wallabies at Welford Road on 25 November 1981; the Australian team was Captained by Mark Loane. Whitcombe played twice against the Barbarians during his Leicester career and toured Zimbabwe with Tigers in 1982, playing in both games against Zimbabwe in Harare and Bulawayo. In 1984 he played against The Gulf on the Middle East tour to Bahrain & Dubai and in 1985 to France. During Tigers game against Chambérien Olympique Rugby in an era without the front row replacement system Whitcombe played most of the game with a broken fibula. Whitcombe left Leicester in 1986 to join Bedford, captained by former Tigers player Andy Key, and played against Kenya in Nairobi as part of the clubs Centenary Season celebrations. At the start of the 1987 season he joined Sale, where he captained the club from 1992 to 1993 and was included on the Sale FC Club Honours Board in 1994. He played in the winning Courage league 1 team in 1993–1994. In 1996 he joined Phil Davies at Leeds Tykes for the last three years of his rugby career playing in two promotion winning teams and played against Tonga at Headingley on 26 November 1997. In an article for the rugby paper in 2012 former Sale lock Dave Baldwin named Whitcombe as loose head prop in his Sale "dream team". Representative honours Whitcombe was capped by Leicestershire in the County Championship his first game was against East Midlands in November 1981. He won his first cap for Yorkshire, against Ulster at Ravenhill