KeithQuinnRugby
Thinking and talking about rugby every day for 50+ years
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Favourite Photos: People, places and stories from around the rugby world
From my travels I have collected many photos; had them sent to me or saved them, because, well, behind most of them there is a good story!
1965 Springbok fullback Lionel Wilson after a fearful collision during the South Africa v Canterbury match.
Lionel Wilson gives us a reminder about the Good old days!
9 June 2014
The 1965 South African fullback Lionel Wilson sent this picture to KeithQuiinnRugby.com some years ago. It is from his private collection of memorabilia and shows how he looked after being involved in a fearful collision during the South Africa v Canterbury game. He recovered from the black eye and played a test match a week later! Wilson came to New Zealand to live permanently in the years after the tour. Read more »
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Colin Meads played 1st class rugby after this injury!
8 June 2014
The mighty Colin Meads of King Country New Zealand, who was the symbol of everything that was tough about rugby in the 1960s and '70s. Here he is with his upper body covered in plaster playing with his young son. Weeks earlier near his farm Meads had suffered a broken back after a motor vehicle crash. A matter of months later he had recovered sufficiently to play full international games again, though his All Black days were over. Read more »
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Keith Quinn has visited Menton 3 times; this visit in 2007 during the Rugby World Cup
Keith Quinn at his Mecca!
3 June 2014
Some people journey to Jerusalem or Mecca or other Holy places. Here is Keith Quinn at his personal 'place of pilgrimage'; at the grave of William Webb Ellis at Menton, Southern France. It serene place where one can reflect whether the man buried there really did start the game of rugby in 1823. Read more »
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High above Lancaster Park, Christhcurch, New Zealand, during the Lions v All Blacks 3rd test match.
Those were days - Test rugby in the afternoon!
1 June 2014
In the 1950s when the big test matches were played it was common for air planes to fly over the grounds dragging advertising slogans. This gave the opportunity for wonderful photographs to be taken. This one was taken in 1959 when officially it was 57,000 people attended the All Blacks v British Lions in Christchurch. Note the packed crowd on the embankment (right hand side) but seated fans on the ground in front of the bank. Read more »
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Every day there is Rugby History 18 June 1995
Click to show Jonah Lomu's Greatest Blockbuster Day!
'Oh oh!' He scored 4 tries in Cape Town as NZ made the 3rd Rugby World Cup final. Beating England 45-29.
A-Z of Rugby
Click to show DAVIES, GERALD
DAVIES, GERALD
Cardiff, London Welsh and Wales
46 internationals for Wales 1966–78
5 internationals for British Isles 1968–71
One of the most brilliant wings the game has known, Gerald Davies was the prince of sidesteppers, a master of speed and a crowd-pleaser in the extreme. Had he not missed several tours for personal reasons, his talent would have been more widely acclaimed.
Davies finished his schooling and education at Loughborough College and Cambridge University. Imbued with their spirit of playing enjoyable rugby, he soon made his way into the Welsh team. His first international was against Australia in 1966, as a centre.
He played 12 full internationals in that position before making the change to the wing. If he was a success as a centre (good enough to be chosen as a British Lion to South Africa in 1968) he became a wing of exceptional class. His size (only 73kg – 111/2 stone) meant that he was rapidly becoming outmoded as a centre at a time when crash-ball specialists were being used more and more. It was as a wing that he could display more expressively his talents for speed and balance.
Davies was considered one of the best sidesteppers the game has seen, especially off his right foot. Many of his markers and opponents could attest to this, none more so than the Hawke’s Bay team in New Zealand in 1971, which played the British Isles at Napier. Davies sidestepped repeatedly at high speed and ran in four brilliant tries.
Davies played all four test matches for the Lions on that tour, having earlier played in the third test at Cape Town in South Africa in 1968. He declined to tour twice with the Lions, to South Africa in 1974 (uncomfortable with what he had seen of the apartheid policies in 1968) and to New Zealand in 1977, but continued as an international until June 1978, when he quit at the age of 33. His last test match was Wales v Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
At the time his 46 appearances on the wing and at centre made him Wales’s most-capped three-quarter. He and Gareth Edwards then shared the record (20) as the highest try-scorers in Welsh internationals.
Gerald Davies later joined the list of former players who wrote and broadcast about the game. He had a number of books published and was also been an expert television presenter and commentator.
His standing in Wales was such that he was chosen to be the Opening Ceremony ‘voice’ of the Rugby World Cup in Cardiff in 1999.
In 2009 the respect in which Gerald Davies was held was confirmed when he was invited to be the Manager of the British and Irish touring team to South Africa. He also played significant roles as a member of the Board of Directors for the Welsh Rugby Union and a sitting member of the International Rugby Board.
10 Questions to well known sporting people
Today's KQ Rugby Quiz
When did an international rugby team play a full game and then travel to another country to play a second full game on the same day?
What do you think?
Click here to show the answer.