Kruis kick takes me right back to Ringo

IT wasn’t just that giant former England lock George Kruis had the effrontery to kick a backheeled conversion for the Barbarians against England last week, it was the nonchalant manner in which he did it.

Having already slotted over a conventional conversion from in front of the posts a few minutes earlier, Kruis stood there with Antoine Hastoy, who teed the ball up high for the big man, and then he just turned around 180 degrees with military precision and did the foul deed with no more fuss than slotting a £2 coin in a coffee machine.

Kruis then trotted back with the minimum of fuss in the fashion of yesteryear when a winger could run 80 yards, beat seven defenders and would be lucky if he even received eye contact let alone an embarrassed handshake from colleagues.

Afterwards, Kruis spoke of five heavy nights on the lash with his new French chums – and the quality of the Barbarians performance suggests national coaches should perhaps take that on board – but such effortless excellence suggests that at least during daylight hours he blew the cobwebs away with some concerted kicking practice.

I wonder what Mark Ring makes of all this. Back in December 1989, Cardiff were playing London Welsh at the Arms Park and Ringo – a rugby genius pure and simple in my book but not a frontline goalkicker – found himself taking the place kicks with Cardiff ’s regular kickers not playing. He promptly missed three pretty simple shots and started to cop some abuse in the crowd: “See you got your slippers on again Ring,” bellowed one wag.

So when Cardiff scored under the posts a few minutes later Ring took great pleasure in back-heeling the conversion to silence the comedian. Genius does what it must.

Alas, although greeted with approval from much of the crowd, it didn’t go down well in some quarters, not least in Cardiff committee circles. Ring’s parents picked up on some fierce criticism and feeling uncomfortable left the ground and Ringo later had to write a letter of apology to the London Welsh club.

You couldn’t make it up.