KeithQuinnRugby
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6 May 2015
G'day there! Yes, keithquinnrugby.com has been quiet for a few weeks. That's because I am currently out of New Zealand on a private holiday. Yes a holiday! I hope you have noticed my absence! But now here on this website and in the days and weeks to come I'll bring you photographs of some of the incredible sights my wife Anne and I have seen these last few weeks. We are visiting six countries in Europe and North America. The picture you see here is from a wonderful art work which is now available for Scottish people and overseas tourists to enjoy.
OK, some of my pictures might not be about rugby but just as when your old favourite Uncle and Auntie want to show you their best holiday 'snaps' sit back and enjoy ours!
These giant horsey figures are 'The Kelpies' which are two sculptures paying tribute to the heavy horses which pulled boats and cargo along two main canals in the north of Scotland, near the town of Falkirk. The name derives from the mythical Celtic water horses which could transform their shape and were reputed to have the strength of 10 horses and massive endurance.
The two sculptures are 30 metres tall (that's 295 'hands' if you're a horsey person!) and were put onto the site in just 90 days in April 2014, just before the Commonwealth Games in Scotland were held.
Each sculpture weighs 300 tonnes and each is comprised of more than 13,000 individual pieces of sculptural steel. They are the work of the brilliant Glasgow-based artist Andy Scott.
In their first year of existence a million people visited them and gasped in admiration! I can tell you I did the same.
[see more pictures from my world trip by going back to the Home Page here and clicking on either 'Quinn's News Comment' or 'Favourite Photos']
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5 September 2010
The Black Ferns score their fourth success at the Women's Rugby World Cup!
New captain Melissa Ruscoe led the team for their 13-10 win over England in the final. This one sweeter - it was on English soil, in London.
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.
What was different about the British Columbian winger Denny Veitch who played against the British and Irish Lions in Vancouver in 1966?
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