It’s heresy, but 71 Lions were fairly ordinary
History is written by the victors. Whole libraries are devoted to the one and only Lions series triumph in New Zealand, the 50th anniversary of which will be celebrated this time next year, with virtually every volume recounting and reflecting in shades of red rather than black.
Those captivated by the heroics of ages past could have spent the entire lockdown reading about Carwyn and no one else. (Surnames are rarely required when talking about the ‘71ers). They would have to take early retirement to plot a course through the literature on JPR and Gerald and Gareth, the “King” and the “Mouse”, Willie John and Merv the Swerve.
It has been somewhat different for Phil Gard, Ken Carrington, Mick Duncan, Wayne Cottrell, Richie Guy, Tom Lister and Jazz Muller. Who? Exactly.
Their international careers expired the moment they and their Kiwi countrymen were held to a 14-all draw in Auckland – the most decisive of indecisive outcomes, given that the Lions had won two of the previous three contests. One or two packed it in of their own accord after the great calamity. The others were chucked out on their cauliflower ears.
And the carnage continued. Laurie Mains, the home full-back at Eden Park, waited five years for another Test, only to be re-dumped immediately, this time for good. Even Colin Meads, who many New Zealanders believe sits on God’s right hand (they are presumably talking about the Old Testament version of the Creator), was given the heave-ho.
That is some fall-out, even by the selection standards of the 1970s. If the All Black hierarchy did not get to write the history, they certainly acquainted themselves with the phrase “you’re history”.
But the H-word brings problems of its own. The writing of history can be a vehicle for deflection and distortion, cavalier with the facts and unreliable in judgement. It can bend truth out of shape.
The point is worth making at this delicate stage in the game’s development, for there are rugby people out there who always hated the idea of professionalism and are only too happy to scream “I told you so” whenever a club or a union squeals with financial pain.
Everything was better in their day, they mutter into their port. There are no Gareths now. They don’t make ‘em like Willie John any more. The last time anyone Swerved like Merv, Merv was the one doing the Swerving.
But how much “better” was it, if it was better at all? Wipe the nostalgia from your eyes and watch that Eden Park Test with a clear line of sight. Trust me, it wasn’t pretty.
The scrum count was off the scale: even if you exclude more than a dozen examples of the 1970s-style reset – nowhere near as drawn-out as today’s fandango, but frustrating all the same – there were 30 of the things in the first half alone. Yes, really. By comparison, line-out connoisseurs were on starvation rations. There were only 27 of those.
On the plus side, possession changed hands with far greater frequency than it does nowadays: partly because of the rucking and partly because the laws relating to the line-out could be grouped under the one-word heading of “jungle”.
Yet while some of the individual performances were worthy of places in the pantheon – Mervyn Davies’ epic ground coverage was a gift from the heavens, not to mention Mike Gibson’s rugby intellect and David Duckham’s all-round mastery – others were some way short of brilliant.
Barry John, aka The King, committed the full range of fly-half sins in the first 40: lost in a fog of loose kicks and fumbles, he left more than one colleague eyebrow deep in the you-know -what and squandered precious points in a low-scoring contest by hooking wide from in front of the sticks. At the risk of being burned at the stake for heresy, it is my solemn duty to report that Gareth Edwards wasn’t devastating either.
Mind you, both men made ample amends after the interval, when it really counted. Which was what made them “Test match animals”, to use the modern phrase. John’s wind-assisted punting in the second half was a miracle of tactical command.
Here was a game that meant everything, hence the frayed nerve-endings and the schoolboy errors – a syndrome familiar to anyone who watched the Lions and the All Blacks go to the final bell on the self-same rectangle of North
Island grass three years ago.
But viewed one after the other, the differences between the two matches are at least as great as the similarities. One was lightning fast, highly-tuned, hugely dynamic and jaw-droppingly athletic. The other was played in 1971.
It is impossible to claim that pro rugby is working to anyone’s satisfaction in the business sense, while the lawmakers have taken many a wrong turn – most of them towards Rugby League.
But if it’s spectacle you want, you’re watching at a good time. We may not be in a golden age, but the bronze age is definitely history.
“Barry John, aka The King, committed the full range of fly-half sins in the first 40”