The story of Wales at the first Rugby World Cup
No-one really knew what to expect when the inaugural Rugby World Cup was staged in New Zealand and Australia back in 1987. Few could have foreseen just how big the tournament would become or that Wales’ third place finish would remain their best ever result some 36 years on. Rugby writer Simon Thomas has spoken to members of that Welsh squad to hear the stories from a campaign like no other...
IN THE summer of 1987, teenagers Richard Webster and Dai Young were in the Australian capital of Canberra playing rugby for the Northern Suburbs side through a link-up organised by their club back home, Swansea. Little could the two uncapped 19-year-olds have imagined what lay in store for them. Former flanker Webster takes up the story.
“Dai and I were working on a building site during the week,” he recalls. “I started out as a bricklayer, but I only lasted three days before I got sacked!
“I was s**t. I couldn’t keep up with them. It was a different style out there and I wasn’t very good at the time, so I didn’t last very long. I ended up with a job putting mastic sealant into the expansion joints that all the buildings had, while Dai was carrying fire doors around on a trolley.
“Then, on the weekend, we were playing for the Northern Suburbs club. It wasn’t a bad standard, but it wasn’t anywhere near Swansea standard.”
Webster is the first to admit that he found it quite a challenging time, living in the Aussie capital: “It was winter and it was cold and there wasn’t much to do,” he says.
“I was so bored out there. It was a downer, so I was getting drunk all the time. The one good thing in Canberra was there was 24-hour drinking. So Dai was training all the time and I was drinking all the time!
“I was a good trainer and a fit boy, but it was just the boredom out there was the thing. So I was drinking quite a lot.”
Then came the moment when fate began to take a hand. Following an injury to prop Stuart Evans, Wales needed a tighthead and in Dai Young they had one who was already Down Under. So the SOS was sent out and Young answered it, leaving his pal behind in Canberra.
“I was pleased for Dai, but I was gutted as well because it wasn’t a great place to be staying on my own without my mate,” says Webster.
“Anyway, a few days after he left, all the boys we were playing with were going up to Sydney to watch Australia play Ireland, so I went with them. I got hammered the night before we left and ended up getting on the train in the morning in the same clothes I’d had on the night before.
“When I sat down in the carriage, I picked up a newspaper and suddenly I am seeing this tiny little bit in the corner: ‘David Young selected to start against England in World Cup quarter-final’.
“I had no idea he was going to be involved in the game. I didn’t have a clue. We weren’t in contact. I said to the boys, ‘I’ve got to go, he’s my mate. I am out here, I’ve got to go.’
“So after we watched the Australia game, they all chipped in and leant me all the money they had. I walked around Sydney and ended up being on a bus for 18 hours overnight up to Brisbane.
“When I got there, I didn’t have a lot of money and I didn’t know where I was going. But I found the hotel Wales were staying in and I phoned Dai from reception. I am still in the same clothes as the Friday and it’s now the Sunday!
“They took me to the game that afternoon and we beat England. I went on the p*ss with them in the night, we had a good drink. I got up in the morning, thinking I was going back to Canberra. Then I got called in to see Clive Rowlands (team manager) and he said, ‘We’ve had a couple of injuries, you are not in the squad, but would you like to stay with us as a guest.’
“I was like, ‘Canberra, Brisbane, fine I am coming with you mate.’ I ended up sharing with Dickie Moriarty who had a room on his own because he was the captain.”
Next up for Wales was the semi-final against mighty New Zealand at Brisbane’s Ballymore, with Young again selected in the front row. As for Webster, he had his own duties to fulfill.
“I went with them to the game, but I had to go outside the ground beforehand because all the boys had spare tickets and I was one of the ticket touts, along with a couple of the other players, trying to sell these tickets because that was the only way we could earn money.
“We lost the match and I went on the beer again. I got up in the morning thinking I was getting a flight back to Canberra and then Clive called me in again and said, ‘Right, you are now a member of the World Cup squad and you are coming to Auckland with us’.
“Ray Williams (WRU secretary) then took me to a place like John Lewis and bought me clothes. There was this guy running round with me saying, ‘I want two pairs of trousers, I want a shirt, I want this’.
“So they kitted me out with some clothes and a bit of kit and I went to Auckland then and the rest is history.”
The history is he was selected to make his Test debut at No 7 in the third place play-off against Australia in Rotorua, taking over from the injured Richie Collins.
“Before we left Auckland to go to Rotorua, which is like travelling to Brecon, they announced the team. I remember they got to the back row and said, ‘Gareth Roberts, Paul Moriarty and, openside, Richard Webster’. I was like, ‘F***, I am playing’.
“I had been on the p*ss for four months, I hadn’t trained. That’s the god’s honest truth. Then I am picked for my first cap! I must be the only mad Welshman who went to watch a game, went on the p*ss and ended up with a cap!”
Webster continues: “As soon as the team was announced, it was pick your bag up and get on the bus. I got on board and I was sitting there thinking, ‘S**t, I’m going to play against Australia’. I was trying to take it all in.
“We didn’t have mobile phones, you couldn’t text home or tell anybody. Then, half way to
I remember standing next to David Codey at the first lineout and he growled at me. I honestly thought, my god I am a little boy and this is a proper big human being, a machine
Rotorua, we stopped at a café in the middle of nowhere. We were all sitting out on the grass having an ice cream and a Coke.
“Then, all of a sudden, the phone rang in this phonebox outside the café. So Mark Ring answered it and said, ‘Webby, it’s for you’.
“I took the phone and it was a journalist from the Western Mail on the line. I can remember giving an interview for 20 minutes telling him how happy I was at having my first cap.
“I was there for ages. He was asking if I wanted to send a message to anyone back home and I was going, ‘Yes, hi to the boys from Bonymaen’. I gave it the full spiel. I was loving it.
“I came out of the phonebox and then Dai goes to me, ‘Webby, they are taking the p*ss’. I was going, ‘No, no, they gave me a sound test and everything’.
“But it turns out it had been Malcolm Dacey ringing from inside the café.
And everybody knew apart from me!
They really done me. I was a young kid and they were ripping the p*ss out of me.
“Sat nav couldn’t have found me, so how I ever thought a journalist could have tracked me down at a café in a random place on the way to Rotorua, I’ll never know.”
Then, the following day, it was game time. Webster admits it was something of a daunting debut early on.
“I remember standing next to their flanker
David Codey at the first lineout and he growled at me. I was s***ting myself. I honestly thought, my god I am a little boy and this is a proper big human being, a machine. He had a proper angry face on and I was thinking, ‘I am up against it today’.
“I can remember being really nervous seeing him. But then he got sent off for stamping on Gareth Roberts. Fred Howard (referee) gave it the big straight arm in the air, off. I remember thinking, phew, happy days.
“Gareth did me a massive favour by getting a good kicking. I had a bit of a freer time after that.”
Wales were to win 22-21 in dramatic style, with full-back Paul Thorburn landing the decisive touchline conversion in the fifth minute of injury time after winger Adrian Hadley had crossed in the left corner.
“Obviously we were underdogs going into the match, so it was a great feeling to get the result,” says Webster. “I can remember finishing the game and coming off and saying, ‘Hi mam’, to the camera. Everybody back home was crying at that.
“Then I was in the showers afterwards, saying, ‘Right, I am going to get p*ssed tonight’. As soon as I said that, Alan Phillips pinned me against the wall and said, ‘This is the best memory of your life, don’t you go getting drunk’.
“I was choking against the shower wall going, ‘Right oh, Al, right oh’. I can remember that clear as day. Then I went and got p*ssed!
“It was all natural springs in Rotorua and I
ended up being in the hotel pool at midnight with my blazer on, having a drink!”
Wales’ campaign was over but it wasn’t quite time to go home yet: “We went to watch the final between New Zealand and France in Auckland and after the game all four semi-finalists had to go to this big dinner.
“As we walked in to the reception area at this big function hall, there was a jersey from every team that had played in the World Cup pinned up on a board.
“Then, either side of the hall, there were goal-posts with a World Cup ball hanging from them. When we left, the Welsh team got every jersey and robbed both balls!
“I can remember one of our second rows lifting somebody up to get a ball that was tied hanging from the post. So we pinched the balls and the 16 jerseys! I always remember I had the Australian jersey. It was proper old school touring. We were pinching everything.”
Webster, who still works in the building trade today and lives in Ogmore, went on to win 13 Wales caps and go on the 1993 Lions tour of New Zealand. But he will never forget his unlikely Test debut in the summer of 1987.
“It’s just a crazy story when you think about it, but a very happy memory,” he says.