The legend, the artist and the Greatest Try

WHEN Welsh artist Elin Sian Blake, pictured, agreed to take on the commission to paint one of the most iconic moments in the history of rugby union she didn’t really know what she was letting herself in for.

Approached to capture the moment that Gareth Edwards dived to score for the Barbarians against New Zealand on January 27, 1973, at the old Cardiff Arms Park, she knew all about the try, the try scorer and the significance of the game.

No problem then. Not so. You can watch the video, marvel at how the try developed and speak to the man himself about how he felt in the moment. But what Elin didn’t realise, there are absolutely no photographs of the try itself.

How can that be, I hear you ask? There were cameras and photographers 50 years ago, but there had never a been a try like that before. To fully understand how one of the greatest moments in British sport was totally missed you have to ask the profession itself.

If you study the video of the game you can see a posse of around 10 photographers taking pictures of the team, and the New Zealand Haka, prior to kick-off. After that, they dispersed to the touchlines.

“In those days the lenses were different and the demands from the newspapers weren’t the same,” explained David Norrie, who runs the Colorsport picture agency in London.

“Our man, Colin Elsey, was at the game and was one of less than a dozen people covering the match. Peter Bush, the doyen of Kiwi sports photographers who is still alive, was also there, as was Bob Thomas, who built up the agency that became Getty Images.

“They wouldn’t have expected such an explosive start to the game and would just have been glad to have got a couple of line-outs or scrums in the bag to begin with. They would have been working the touchlines, keeping up with play, rather than sitting in a static position behind the posts.

“When Bryan Williams kicked ahead from half-way they would probably have switched off, thinking the covering Phil Bennett was going to clear to touch. He didn’t!

“The snappers on the north stand touchline would have been out of the equation as the move built towards the south stand and then headed towards the west terrace. Those on the south side would probably have been wondering what on earth was going on.

“They may have got a shot or two of the move coming towards them, but as soon as Derek Quinnell shovelled the ball out to Gareth Edwards, it was simply going too fast to catch up.”

Among those who were struggling to keep up was the Western Mail’s own Clive Lewis. There are a few long shots of Gareth diving over in the corner from behind and a nice head-on snap of him running back to half-way as the crowd roared its approval.

These days, there are 40 positions for photographers at the Principality Stadium for most Wales matches. They are all given an assigned position between the 5-15 metres lines behind the posts. They have to stay in their positions for the whole game or find someone to switch with at halftime from the other end. Nobody runs the touchlines anymore.

“It was a big moment and it is a great shame it wasn’t captured for posterity,” said Dave Davies, of the Press Association, who was crowned the Welsh Sports Journalist of the Year in 2019.

“You had film in your cameras in those days and the local lads would probably have had a runner with them to take the film back to base to get developed. There were no floodlights and you just hoped for a bright day in order to get some non-grainy shots.

“They would probably have been shooting between three and five rolls of film, each with 36 frames on them. These days, we have highspeed cameras with lenses as long as your arm which can shoot more than 1,000 frames in a game.

“If that try was scored today there would be hundreds, even thousands of frames of it from start to finish. Then, of course, if anything had been missed you can bet someone in the crowd caught it on their phone!”

No wonder Elin had a few problems when she began her research. The project took her a year to produce, with Gareth’s left hand taking five days in its own right. It would have been so much easier if there had been some pictures!

“The idea was to create almost a 3D effect to allow people to look at the painting as if Gareth was diving towards them sitting behind the line. It was a technical challenge to get that right, especially with all the attention to detail,” said Elin.

“Gareth was brilliant to work with and he talked me through his thinking at the time and his actions to score the try. One day he came to my studio and demonstrated how he dived towards the line by diving on my bed. Yes, Gareth Edwards diving across my bed!

“It was surreal, but he gave me so much help and support as we tried to get it right. There is a little bit of artistic licence, but other than moving the French referee, Georges Domercq, from behind Grant Batty to get him into the picture I think we’ve been pretty historically accurate.”

It was Elin who came up with the title for the picture – The Greatest Try – and prints are now being made available for purchase. The original will take pride of place at the Edwards’ home in Porthcawl.

Born in Pontypridd, Elin now lives at the foot of the Blorenge Mountain in Abergavenny. Educated at Ysgol Gyfun Rhydyfelin, she obtained a BA honours degree in art at the Glamorgan Centre for Art and Design.

A few years ago she converted an old Bedford horsebox into a home and took to the road, roaming freely around the wild Welsh landscape. She produced a series of paintings based on iconic Welsh rugby figures for a few years, but nothing quite as intricate and demanding as The Greatest Try.

Details of how to purchase prints of the painting by Elin Sian Blake can be found at www. thegreatesttry.com