Alun Wyn looks set to eclipse Willie John
Willie John McBride has been sitting all alone at the top of a mountainous pile since belatedly calling it a day almost half a century ago.
The Ulsterman’s record for a Lions’ lock of 14 consecutive seasons in the world’s oldest annual international tournament has stood since his last match 46 years ago. No British or Irish forward has quite lasted long enough to knock him off his perch, a list distinguished in name and number, including three of his successors as captain of the Lions.
Sir Bill Beaumont was forced into early retirement, Martin Johnson called it quits after conquering the supreme global peak in Sydney and Paul O’Connell had climbed to within shouting distance of McBride when injury hit him like an avalanche during the pool stage of the 2015 World Cup.
O’Connell’s successor, Rory Best, matched McBride’s Five-Six Nations longevity without surpassing it. The only Lions who took it to a higher altitude were both backs, Mike Gibson and Brian O’Driscoll whose careers spanned 16 and 15 championships respectively.
Now, barring a cruel twist of fate, McBride, at 80 the most venerated of the old Lions, will be overtaken by another second row forward who has dared to last longer and plant his crampons into still higher ground.
Having already survived 14 seasons in the Championship, Alun Wyn Jones is on course to start his 15th at the earliest available opportunity, Ireland in Cardiff on February 7. The word from the Welsh camp points to their captain resuming command despite playing no rugby since damaging an ankle against Italy almost two months ago.
Meanwhile across the Irish Sea at
Ballycastle, McBride gives the distinct impression that his record could not be about to fall into a safer pair of hands. “Alun Wyn Jones has been the backbone of the Welsh team for many years,’’ he says. “He is a superb player.
“It takes outstanding fitness and a special attitude to keep going at international level for any length of time. There is one big difference between he and I. I played a lot of club rugby and the club scene was tough because you had lesser players. I played for Ballymena until I was 40.’’
Ireland at the Millennium Stadium is where Jones began in the Championship, on the same first weekend of February 14 years ago. He started on the losing side and kept losing at Murrayfield, Paris and Rome before avoiding a reverse Grand Slam in the final match at home to England when James Hook went through the card.
Wales at Cardiff Arms Park is where McBride finished, on the St Patrick’s Day weekend in 1975 when the original ‘Dad’s Army’ were outplayed 5-1 on tries, including one for a galloping Charlie Faulkner as the senior member of the revered Pontypool front row.
“We were all too old by then,’’ McBride says of that trouncing, 32-4. “They had Phil Bennett and Gareth Edwards and all that pace behind the scrum. They ran us off the field. I was going to retire after the Lions tour of South Africa the year before but I was cajoled into going on. 1975 was the centenary of the IRFU and the president asked me to continue for one more year.’’
At 35, older now than McBride was then, Jones has no intention of quitting any time soon. The pandemic may rob him of a fourth Lions tour this summer but the Welsh management is already talking of their captain making a fifth World Cup, in France in 2023.
He will be 37 then, old, certainly, but at least two of his more familiar opponents were older still before they ran out of steam.
Best was the same age during the last tournament in Japan and the Springbok Victor Matfield well into his 39th year when England hosted the previous jamboree in 2015.