LEGENDARY FLY-HALF BENNY AT 70
WHEN Phil Bennett was 40 he appeared in a golden oldies match for Wales against England and it was as if an 18-year-old had wandered into a game for under nines.
While everyone else struggled to summon the skills that had once propelled them to prominence, the small chap at fly-half looked as sprightly as he had a decade earlier. The slashing sidesteps, pinpoint kicking, instant appreciation of space and velvet touches were all there. It was as if he had time-travelled forward from the 1970s.
Ten years on, when Felinfoel’s finest reached his 50th birthday, Bobby Windsor had no hesitation in declaring, only half in jest: “He is still the best fly-half in Wales.”
Time stands still for no man and today the most celebrated of Scarlets will blow out 70 candles on his birthday cake.
Last weekend, 290 people attended a function in his honour in Llanelli.
The likelihood is that most of them weren’t drawn to the event simply because of Benny’s on-pitch deeds back in the day.
No, the majority of them would have been there to acclaim a man who has always worn his fame lightly, who is modest and happier praising others, an icon of his community and someone who is simply good to know.
“You can write anything down because he’s just great,” says his former Llanelli half-back partner Ray ‘Chico’ Hopkins when asked for his thoughts on his old mate.
“When I was a bit low a fair while ago, he always used to ring me up to see how I was. He’s a brilliant guy, one of my best mates.”
“TELL THEM TO BUY ME A FEW BEERS” DELME Thomas, who has been friendly with him since he arrived at Stradey Park in the 1960s, once said Bennett was one of the least affected people he had known.
“He doesn’t change,” said Thomas, himself a towering figure of Llanelli rugby. “He is from the area and it means the world to him.
“It says a lot for him that he has stayed as he has. He is just a great person, someone it’s been a privilege to know and call a friend.”
Stories of Benny’s grounded nature and generosity are well known.
A tale has been passed down at the
South Wales Evening Post newspaper of a local rugby club once ringing the sports desk desperately seeking help after being let down at the last minute by their after-dinner speaker. The then sports editor David Evans got in touch with the paper’s long-time columnist, who agreed in an instant to stand in. “But what about money?” Benny was asked. “They can’t pay you much.”
“Tell them to buy me a few beers,” came the reply.
A great evening was had by all.
THE MODERN GAME AND ALL THAT
THE new addition to the ranks of the septuagenarians is often asked whether he would have wanted to play in the modern game. Some even muse how the likes of Bennett and Barry John would have coped in a sport that increasingly demands that those at the top level be blessed with muscles where there shouldn’t even be muscles.
Well, the pair would have adapted, because that’s what exceptional talent does.
Defence coaches would have had to triple-mark Bennett and even then they wouldn’t have been totally confident that at some point over the 80 minutes he wouldn’t unleash a jagged-edge sidestep or two to make a nonsense of their carefully drawnup plans.
Would he have wanted to have played today? “I had my career, played for Llanelli RFC, the only club I ever wanted to play for, and made friends for life,” he says.
“I also played alongside countless world-class players, for Wales, my club, the British and Irish Lions and the Barbarians.
“I would not have changed it for the world.
“It was a different game from today, but I enjoyed it hugely.”
POETRY IN MOTION
IT is easy to forget that Bennett broke into the Wales team while most armchair viewers were watching rugby on black and white TVs. It was March 1969 when he came on as a replacement against France at the old Stade de Colombes.
But it was only after John finished in 1972 that his Test career really got going, with the Lions Test series of 1974 a spectacular episode that confirmed Bennett as being beyond special.
In between John packing in and the trip to South Africa came the famous Barbarians-New Zealand game, a match regarded as one of the finest ever played.
It was the game that saw Bennett gather a bouncing ball just metres from his own line while some in the North Stand were still settling in their seats.
Three slashing sidesteps later a third of the New Zealand side had been beaten. That wasn’t just brave counter-attacking play. It was a demonstration of extraordinary skill that continues to resonate more than 45 years on.
No Bennett, no greatest try of all time.
“Phil was poetry in motion,” recalled Thomas. “I remember him coming into the club from youth rugby. You could tell then he was a star in the making. I played with some great No.10s, including Barry John in New Zealand in 1971.
“Barry was another genius and it is almost impossible to say who was the better player. But what possibly edges it in Phil’s favour is that he did it for a bit longer, with Barry finishing at 27.
“Phil could destroy an opposition game plan, not just with his attacking play, but with his ability to read a match. He had a gift for spotting opposition weaknesses and playing on them.
“How would he have fared in the modern game?
“He would have adapted without bother. People forget that while rugby may be more physical today, it was a lot dirtier years ago, and Phil was often a target. Flankers would
THAT SPEECH ON such a red-letter day, it is overdue to get a definitive answer on a matter that has been debated in rugby clubs since days of yore.
What did Bennett really say in the dressing room before the Wales v England match in 1977?
It’s been reported that his tubthumping pre-match address went thus: “Look at what these b ****** s have done to Wales. They’ve taken our coal, our water, our steel. They buy our houses and live in them for a fortnight every 12 months. And what have they given us? Absolutely nothing. We’ve been exploited, raped, controlled and punished by the English – and we’re playing them this afternoon.”
Did it really go that way, with all that fire and brimstone? “The boys
seem to remember it that way,” laughs Bennett.
“I had been reading something in the week before about a Welsh village that had been flooded to provide water for places in England.
“I suppose it stuck in my mind. “I definitely remember wondering beforehand how I could fire up players like Gareth Edwards, JPR Williams and Gerald Davies, boys who had seen it all before.
“So I said a few words that a lot of people seem to remember.”
He adds, tongue possibly in cheek: “At one point Gareth, a keen fisherman, seemed to be drifting a bit so I mentioned the English were even taking over our fishing waters. That stirred him.”
Chico Hopkins also notes a key reason why Benny has done so well in life. “Pat, his wife, has been brilliant for him,” he says. “They’ve been a great partnership.
“When we were away there’d be a letter from her every week. We were sharing a room on one trip and a pigeon started tapping our window. I used to tease Phil that it was carrying another letter from Pat.”
His family have always been there for him.
Earlier this year he recalled arriving back from Wales’ tour of Argentina in 1968, team-mates having left the bus from Heathrow one by one until he was the last one on it. There was barely a light on in home own village, as the teenaged Phil disembarked with heavy bags, before setting eyes on his father, Les.
“It didn’t get to Felinfoel until gone 2am but Dad, bless him, was sat on the wall at the front of the house waiting for me. I suppose he thought I might have needed a cup of tea,” said Bennett.
As someone once said, nostalgia paints in honey.
But in Bennett’s case, the memories are authentically sweet.
Happy birthday, indeed.