The current vintage is good, but here’s why Wales’ Class of ‘76 is still the finest we’ve ever seen...
THE challenge of coming up with the greatest team in a particular sport is one that regularly fills many a bar-room hour.
Some will insist the key consideration in making such a judgement should be the number of wins posted, and they will have a point. Sport at its core is about winning and losing, after all.
There again, there’s another way of looking at it.
The great Dutch football side featuring Johan Cruyff and Johan Neeskens were victorious in only one of the five games they played before the 1974 World Cup and they never actually won the global tournament. But for those of a particular age, the masters of Total Football are right up there as one of the greatest teams ever.
So how do you judge? Of course, results have to be part of the equation but the way a team plays and the players and personalities in it count as well. How long a great side sticks together matters, obviously, and how many people did it truly enthuse inside its own borders and beyond?
Brazil’s footballers pressed all those buttons in 1970 — bedazzling sports enthusiasts and casual observers across the planet with artistry that also translated into wins.
But the Wales rugby team during that decade also had a good thing going. For some, they were the ovalball’s equivalent of Brazil’s footballers, splashed by all-time great talents. The 1971 team swaggered their way to a Grand Slam and the teams from 1976 to 1978 boasted power and muscle as well as flair and pace to take two clean sweeps during an era when France were formidable.
Which, then, is the greatest Wales rugby XV ever?
No doubt playing mind games, Eddie Jones triggered the debate by suggesting the current generation are worthy of that title. They are a team who deserve huge respect, having equalled the all-time Welsh record of 11 Test wins in a row, set more than a hundred years earlier.
Other sides up for the bauble include the 1907-1910 side who held the win record on their own for so long, plus the wonderful early 1950s brigade who banked two Grand Slams in three seasons and also defeated New Zealand, with Brylcreem boys Cliff Morgan, Bleddyn Williams, Jack Matthews and Ken Jones among the stand-out players.
But, ultimately, the mind keeps wandering back 40 or so years to the decade of flares, bubble perms and kipper ties.
The best team of that era? Listen to Mervyn Davies in the brilliant book Nobody Beats Us, by David Tossell, discussing the merits of the 1971 and 1976 sides: “The 1976 side probably was a better team.
“We had a better pack of forwards because, even in the early 1970s, we weren’t particularly dominant up front; our strength was in the threequarters.
“By 1976, we had probably the strongest pack Wales had ever put out so we could dominate for long periods, yet we still had the same quality behind the scrum.”
In the same book, JJ Williams, too, picks out the 1976 side as possibly Wales’s greatest ever, while John Dawes, who played in the 1971 side and coached the team between 1974 and 1979, sums up the decade by saying: “People wanted to see our type of game. You don’t talk about the Brazil soccer team just because they win. You talk about what you see and the way they play.
“People enjoyed our game, even in England, where the media always liked us.”
Here, then, are the players who hit such heights for Wales in 1976. Maybe they formed the greatest team this country has ever produced...
15. JPR Williams
AN all-time great who set new standards for courage and wanted to win so much it must have hurt.
Williams rarely missed a tackle or a high ball and regularly posed a running threat. Blessed with supreme self belief, he galvanised those around him. In 1976, he came up with the never-to-be-forgotten hit on Jean-Francois Gourdon that saved the Grand Slam in the final game against France. The clenched fists salute after the try-saver still resonates.
14. Gerald Davies
SOME consider the genius from Llansaint to be Wales’s second greatest player after Gareth Edwards. That’s how good he was.
The former centre helped changed the wing role by roving infield and wreaking havoc in opposition defences.
Bill McLaren said he had a sidestep like shaft of lightning.
Davies could also defend. Complete package? He was your man.
13. Ray Gravell
HE was famously a prince of worriers, but more famously Welsh rugby’s warrior prince.
Whereas the 1971 team were able to call on the passing skills of John Dawes, Gravell buccaneered his way to prominence with his ability to crash through tackles and draw in defenders.
This most humble of men went on to become a legend in his own life-time, with a gregarious personality and immense passion for all things Welsh.
After Ray’s passing, the historian Hywel Teifi Edwards said: “Loving Wales and revelling in its people were as natural to him as breathing. If you asked him where his gwladgarwch (patriotism) came from, he would look at you and tell you nobody asks why snow is white.”
12. Steve Fenwick
THE no-nonsense centre helped give Wales a rock-solid midfield as his partnership with Ray Gravell became renowned.
He could kick out of hand and off the tee and often stepped forward to do the goal-kicking honours.
Fenwick took responsibility and had more skill than a lot gave him credit for, as his flick pass for Phil Bennett’s legendary try against Scotland in 1977 underlined.
11. JJ Williams
THE Commonwealth Games sprinter was renowned for his lightning pace which helped him perfect the chip and chase that he used to score many of his tries.
But he also had a sharp rugby brain and a self-confidence that served him well throughout his career.
Scored 12 tries in 30 Tests for Wales and helped provide a devastating cutting edge.
10. Phil Bennett
HE had the toughest of all fly-half acts to follow when he succeeded Barry John, a player who had spent much of his career operating in another dimension.
But it says everything about how well Phil Bennett did that even now there is a debate over who was the better player. Benny could run a game with razor-sharp rugby intelligence but he also had a famed attacking game and when in the mood, as against Ireland in 1976, he could cut a defence to pieces.
Toured twice with the Lions, most notably in 1974 when he helped destroy South Africa.
9. Gareth Edwards
THE master of pretty much all he surveyed in rugby in the 1970s.
Edwards had an explosive running game underpinned by long pass, which he had worked hard to develop, and a devastating kicking game. Opponents knew at some point he would strike during a match. They didn’t know when or how, but when the attack came it would often prove lethal.
Still considered by many to be greatest rugby union player of them all.
1. Charlie Faulkner
FEW knew for sure how old Faulkner