It was North’s finest hour – 40 years ago today
LAST month we witnessed possibly the single greatest England performance in our lifetime when they battered New Zealand – and 40 years ago to this very day, I would argue, the North produced the definitive performance by an English divisional or county side.
I refer, of course, to the North’s 21-9 win over the All Blacks at Otley when they outscored the previously unbeaten tourists – who were fielding their first choice Saturday team – four tries to one with a command performance that stands the test of time. North skipper Bill Beaumont always rates it the highlight of his very considerable career.
There is no record of Otley’s 32 pubs running short of ale that night, but with just a 10,000 crowd to cater for and many fans having to return across the snowy Pennines to Lancashire straight after the game the demand was slightly less severe than in Llanelli seven years earlier.
I will place a small bet that the first Damascus moment for most of England’s great sides of the 90s was watching this match on Rugby Special around a blazing fire the following day.
You can still view the match on Youtube or a 25th anniversary DVD they brought out in 2004 but for those of a certain vintage the strongest images are seared in our brains for ever.
Spectators perched like rooks in the tops of the swaying poplar trees; flyhalf Alan Old placing the ball and asking Tony Neary to hold it as he kicked for touch against the strong wind; the elegant Mike Slemen somehow looking pristine and relaxed despite the blood and thunder; the bright lights of Otley’s clubhouse shining like car headlights down a dark lane as the game finished in near darkness.
And, finally, the sight of a frozen quartet of heroes – Tony Neary, Peter Dixon, Steve Smith and Bill Beaumont – teeth chattering with the cold and straining at the leash for the first beer as Nigel Starmer Smith conducted the post match interviews.
Neary, Dixon, Smith and, indeed, Fran Cotton had all played for North West Counties when they beat the All Blacks in a midweek game in 1972 – but this seemed extra special
Watching the game afresh, the North played at a staggering pace that is reminiscent of rugby circa 2019 and the ruck area was much more efficient and better officiated than today’s shambolic breakdowns.
The tacking was off the Richter scale – Beaumont at one stage was upended by a double tip tackle without a murmur in the crowd or word of complaint from the man himself.
Smith had one of his very best games at scrum-half. Occasionally – usually when Cotton had been supervising his fitness work – Smithie could go to another level and this was one of them.
The skipper himself was magnificent. It’s easy to forget what a great rampaging forward Beaumont was in his pomp. It was the start of a busy eight months for the World Rugby chairman who was about to captain England to an historic Grand Slam followed by a Lions tour of South Africa where he proved a notably popular skipper.
One thing that I had forgotten is that referee Alan Hosie nearly pinged the North off the park. The Scotsman was in unforgiving mood and in the Rugby
Special 50 minute edit of the game I lost count at 16 penalties against the North. This was a rare, possibly unique, example of a losing touring side having absolutely no complaints about ‘bent’ home refs.
Victory wasn’t totally unexpected, indeed local scribe Bill Bridge predicted it with complete confidence in his match preview, and although the national reporters were less adamant as they travelled north all agreed New Zealand’s record was in danger.
Just 12 months earlier the North, with a weaker line-up, had lost only 9-6 to the All Blacks at Birkenhead and since then the dominant Lancashire county side – with a few invited ringers from other Northern counties – had embarked on a gruelling summer tour of South Africa.
There they got to grips with exactly what was needed up front to beat top southern hemisphere teams, especially the remorseless pick and drive game they employed against the All Blacks.
Now, 40 years on, you look at that North line up with some awe, especially up front where they paraded no fewer than five England captains past and present. Three of those were in their all Lions backrow of Neary, Dixon and Roger Uttley which is arguably the greatest ever breakaway unit in the English game, matched only by the triumvirate of Richard Hill, Lawrence Dallaglio and Neil Back.
Then there was Beaumont and, of course, Cotton in the front row. There was a sixth, future, England captain in the backs in the shape of Smith. The North certainly didnt lack for leadership.
On the day, though, others also stepped into the breach, there were many heroes and numerous little subplots.
Fly-half Alan Old, the one Yorkshire man in the side and therefore cheered to the hilt, was 34 and hadn’t played Test rugby for two years. He had been in and out of the England side since the day he was first picked and yet on his day was a world beater. Just like his cricketing brother Chris in fact.
Alan was the man who had once, in three consecutive Test appearances, guided England to victories over South Africa at Ellis Park, New Zealand at Eden Park and then Australia at Twickenham.
He was also on fire early during the 1974 Lions tour and pushing the captain Phil Bennett hard for the Test spot when suffered an ACL injury against the Proteas.
Otley was Old’s finest day and it still grates with many that his efforts didn’t earn a Test match recall the following week against the All Blacks.
There are other fine cameos to note. In the centre Sale’s Tony Wright looked to the manor born, one of the North’s best players on the day and not remotely fazed by the Kiwis. How remarkable that England never looked his way, or perhaps not, given England’s supreme ability to side-line serious talent at the time.
The selectors did at least pick up on a chunky bundle of blond energy playing on the wing for the North that day, one John Carlton who wasn’t capped at the time but got the call a few days later to play the All Blacks.
Then there was Bond, Tony Bond. A ferociously physical and talented centre, Bond should have been England’s equivalent of Steve Fenwick, the glue in the Welsh back division for so many years
But he was unlucky. Bond played the next week against New Zealand but then in the Six Nations a couple of months later, against Ireland, suffered one of the worst broken legs witnessed on a rugby pitch.
Remarkably he somehow made a comeback and even played another Test – against Ireland in 1982 – but understandably he was never quite the same player.
He will have regrets…but Otley 1979 is not a bad game to be remembered by.