England V Wales - No Winners
Last season, Ireland discovered just how important it was for their national team to have a game before Christmas. They beat Australia convincingly on a summer tour in 1979, something that was beyond the capability of Wales the year before, and when they returned, they rested on their laurels until the beginning of the 1980 international championship seven months later.
Half-fit (and I am being polite), their pack was crucified by England in the first match at Twickenham, and yet by the end of the season, Ireland were putting Wales to the sword in Dublin, something that was a long way beyond the capability of England, the eventual winners of the championship and the grand slam.
While Ireland were resting, England and Scotland had been required to bustle about and become involved in the hard work of preparation for a short tour by the All Blacks in the early part of the season. It is true that England added another memorable piece of hara-kiri to the countless wounds they have inflicted upon themselves in the last 15 years when they deliberately turned away from choosing the bulk of the North of England team which achieved such a smashing victory over the All Blacks. But even the act of consummating in an international match the bloodymindedness involved in sticking to the manifest errors of the selectors' original squad at least made a lot of England players work hard through the autumn.
The team which England fielded against New Zealand dumbfounded even the All Blacks, and in the circumstances, England probably did rather well to lose only 10-9, but the unnecessary misery to which they were condemned by their selectors at least paid off against Ireland six weeks later.
Much of the same thing has happened this season. Wales are celebrating their centenary, and they invited New Zealand over for a brisk little tour which incorporated matches against Cardiff, Newport, Swansea, Llanelli and Wales. Defeat of the All Blacks has become such an unholy crusade in Wales that almost the entire nation, men and women, went into training and bust their guts in an effort to win.
They failed, very much more emphatically than England had failed, but at least they got themselves fit. Their choice of players for their first match of the international championship against England was as difficult to follow as England's choice of players had been for the match against New Zealand the year before, but at least the four great clubs of Wales had worked hard in preparation for their matches against the All Blacks, and so had the Welsh national team.
This season, England did not have that sort of advantage, and when they played their first match against Wales in Cardiff, the lack of match practice showed. It was a game played badly by both teams, but because of their sufferings against New Zealand, the Welsh players were able to dredge out of themselves something like 85 per cent of what has become their distinctly limited potential, whereas England played to no better than 50 per cent of their capability. The result was a 21-19 win for Wales after England had led 19-18 after two minutes of injury time.
It was a match which either team could have won, and which in the end was given away by a reverberating piece of folly by Clive Woodward. the England centre, who allowed himself to be lured offside by a dummy pass from Welsh scrum-half Brynmor Williams. It was Woodward who, because of his lack of experience as a winger, failed to kick the ball into the crowd and so let the Springboks take a quick throw-in which enabled them to win the third test and the series against the British Lions in South Africa in 1980. Fancy having to live with those two moments for the rest of your life. And for something that you do for fun, as well!
Of course, not many teams have been that close to victory in Cardiff in the last 13 years, but the fact is that this Welsh team is not in the same class as its predecessors over that period. They were sustained against England by a virtuoso performance of kicking by Gareth Davies at fly-half, but even that could not be acclaimed without qualification, because by kicking as much as he did, he destroyed any aspirations the Welsh may have had to play constructive football.
Whether Wales had any aspirations to do that is another matter. They have a merciless eye for human weakness, particularly on a rugby field, and they knew full well that "Dusty" Hare, for all his merits as a goalkeeper, is not a sound full-back, and never has been. He drops too many high balls and he misses too many tackles. His speed of foot is not exactly that of David Hewitt either.
Wales attacked Hare, and they attacked John Carleton too, because he also used to be weak when the ball was in the air and weak in the tackle. But not now. He has worked hard at his deficiencies. He fielded beautifully, he cleared up well, he found some useful touches and he found one brilliant one, wrongly disallowed by the referee for a non-existent knock-on, and he stopped JPR Williams in his tracks when the Welsh full-back tried to bullock through the middle. (Ireland are also well served to stop this particular Welsh ploy). In addition, Carleton ran a particularly effective dummy scissors when England scored their try.
Still, Wales cashed nine points from Hare's mistakes. Admittedly, he scored 19 points for England (he could have scored 36), but it was he who perpetrated the two guggles which sent Welsh confidence soaring with a 12-3 lead, a lead, incidentally,which they in no way deserved, because they had played no football at all.
The England scrummage was badly disrupted by the injury to Fran Cotton which forced Phil Blakeway to move to loose head, though why on earth the England selectors chose an ordinary tight head like Austin Sheppard as the replacement prop instead of a class loose head like Colin Smart I shall never know. Winning international rugby matches is all about getting those little sums right. After all, if Blakeway had been injured, Cotton could have moved across to tight head, where he has been a superb Lions prop. And if Cotton had been injured, as he was, then England would have had a specialist loose head as cover. Now Cotton has retired. All rather sad.
Once again, Graham Price, the Welsh tight head, put the serums on the floor to stop Wales being turned or pushed on their put-in, and once again, the referee did not know what day it was. I shall never understand the thought processes which persuade the authorities to give a match like Wales versus England at Cardiff Arms Park to a referee doing his first international. This had an important bearing on the result, because the penalty goal that took Wales 12-3 ahead came when. England were outrageously penalised for a deliberate Welsh scrummage collapse to protect a Welsh heel. It was not even as if England had won the bal1 against the head.
Much the same thing happened in the lineout. The Welsh selectors must have been a few pence short of a shilling to leave out Allan Martin, because he has always played well against England in Cardiff. Then when Wales picked a veteran valley forward like Clive Davis instead, they knew that they had to rely on moving into the England lineout in a unanimous phalanx of illegality to stop Maurice Colclough cleaning up. They did that, and as Mr. Anderson scarcely started to referee the lineout, either, Wales got away with it.
England pulled off one good set move, but Steve Smith is not sharp enough of foot to attack the defensive weakness in the Welsh back row in the way that Irish serum-halves would. While Wales continue to fail to choose Jeff Squire as their number eight, they will not have their best back row, and while they pick Gareth Williams in that position, they will have a defensive hole for the opposition to exploit, particularly in the absence of Terry Holmes. When Holmes comes back to the Welsh team, their close defence
will be improved out of sight.
JPR Williams had his least distinguished game for Wales. He has always been a poor kicker and slow on the turn and he has been lucky that only the All Blacks, and notably Grant Batty, have had the wit to exploit his deficiencies. All the other countries have busily played to Williams' strength at catching and tackling. It looks like another season for goal kickers, though. How far adrift the International Board's ill-conceived plans to "open up the game" have gone! As I have said, "Dusty" Hare could have scored 32 points for England as a kicker against Wales, and if that sort of climate persists, Ollie Campbell should set another record for the season. If he doesn't, Hare will.
I suspect, too, that we are in for an undistinguished season. Romania and Argentina, as well as New Zealand and South Africa, have shown just how far down the ladder European Rugby has slipped, and this season could well be one of those in which almost everyone wins their home games. Obviously, the two teams with the best chance of breaking that pattern are Ireland and Wales, because they both have the inviting prospect of away matches at Murrayfield, and as Scotland showed against a rebuilt French team, they are still so loose both at forward and in defence that they may well be struggling to avoid an unsplintered wooden spoon yet again.
Like England in Wales, Ireland have their best chance of winning something important for years and years. Even the bookmakers rate them as favourites . . . What was that I heard Fergus Slattery muttering? The kiss of death?