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Thinking and talking about rugby every day for 50+ years
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Dennis Lillee and John Newcombe. I dreamed of opening the bowling for Australia, and winning Wimbledon. True, I achieved neither, but I did once get a very useful 2 wickets for 8 for the Knox Grammar School's Under14 C team, and I also once took a set off Julian Lovell in Fifth Form. And he went on to be AT LEAST one of the top ten tennis players of the Sixth Form at Knox Grammar.
All Black TERRY LINEEN, test cricketer BERT SUTCLIFFE and the world champion middle-distance runner PETER SNELL
From soccer it was Leeds and Juventus' 'Il Gigante Buono', Swansea born John Charles. From rugby, it was former Swansea, Wales and British Lion wing threequarter Dewi Bebb. By chance, we became work colleagues at HTV Wales in years to come. When I commentated on the final of the Rugby World Cup in South Africa in 1995, Dewi was directing back in Cardiff. At the end of transmission, he opened all the microphones and declared that was his finest hour in broadcasting. Thousands of miles away in Jo'burg I shed a tear. Nine months later he passed away. I cried.
Bay of Plenty sevens expert Gordon Tietjens takes his first NZ team to Fiji. They didn't win the tournament there but Tietjens stayed coach for 20-plus years
CALCUTTA CUP
The only trophy for competition between two of the Five Nation teams, the Calcutta Cup is played for between England and Scotland.
The trophy originated in India where the Calcutta Football Club, started by some former pupils of Rugby School in England, found itself facing recession after only four years of existence. Rugby was not suited for the summer-like conditions of India.
The club had only modest resources, but as a closing-down gesture, rather than spend their remaining monies on a dinner or a ball, the members withdrew their remaining rupees from the bank and had them melted down. The silver was worked by the finest of Indian workmanship and shaped into a handsome trophy with three distinctive handles shaped like cobras and an elephant mounted on its lid.
The Calcutta Cup was presented to the Rugby Football Union in London in 1878 for competition between England and Scotland. Since then (with the exception of the war years) it has been a much-prized trophy in the annual Five (and now Six) Nations match.
There is an anomaly in the recording of annual results on the base of the cup. It was first played for in 1879 yet the results of England v Scotland matches from 1871 to 1878 are etched into the plinth of the trophy, years before the trophy came into being!
The original Calcutta Cup is now seldom seen in public. Whether the annual game is held at Twickenham or at Murrayfield the original is stored, for security reasons, in a safe vault. In its histroy the Cup has often been the subject of mistreatment by the players of the day. It is often a full-size replica of the cup which is kept for display at both grounds.
(With thanks to John Mcl. Davidson – Honorary Historian Scottish Rugby Union)
Who said; 'Rugby League is a simple game played by simple people. Rugby Union is a complex game played by wankers?'
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