KeithQuinnRugby
Thinking and talking about rugby every day for 50+ years
You are here: Home » All Blacks year by year » 2014 » 2014 All Black tour Diary
In November 2014 for Williment's Sports Tours, along with my wife Anne, I traveled to the UK leading a rugby supporters tour group on the the All Blacks tour. Here is a tour diary.
4 November 2014
Watch this space; the All Black tour to UK diary is coming..... Read more »
Comments 0
'Not Worthless but Priceless' just some of the volunteers who worked in their thousands to make the Youth Games work.
28 August 2014
A bit of a sad day today; The 2nd Summer Youth Olympic Games will end tonight with another fantastic show at the main stadium. Around the time the show begins most of the commentators from the past fortnight will either be on board their flights home or about to get on board, like myself. So I find myself in a reflective mood as I write this. Read more »
Comments 0
26 August 2014
I got myself a new gig at the Nanjing Youth Summer Games these last few days. And, ah hem, if you don't mind from now on, call me one of the Daily Officers in Charge of ACQC for the World Feed of OBS. That puts me up among the big time operators. Well maybe not that high. For more on what makes a top ACQC Operator tune in right here... Read more »
Comments 0
24 August 2014
Play goes on here in Nanjing at the Second Summer Youth Olympic Games and I am still enjoying it hugely. We are now in the second week and heading for the finish line. In watching young people with a maximum age of 18 go about their competition I must say my eyes now have become attuned to seeing them as full adult competitors and not as younger versions of the 'main' Summer Olympic Games. The kids here to me look the same and play with as much commitment. It's been great to see them evolve and 'grow up' as it were... Read more »
Comments 0
Yes, its a very nice hotel that the Olympic Broadcasting Services have booked us into. This is me standing in the foyer of the Hilton Nanjing in my Stephen Donald shirt!!
23 August 2014
There are two nights of events covered in this report from the Nanjing Youth Olympic Games 2014. My commentary stints ended last night when I worked the weightlifting with a fair-dinkum Aussie broadcaster John Harker. I had listened to John and Jim Watt from the Glasgow Commonwealth Games a couple of weeks back when they did the boxing together - and I had been mightily impressed. They were a great combination. (I actually thought John was commentating the boxing with Bill Connolly for a while so similar were there Glaswegian accents!) Read more »
Comments 0
21 August 2014
Today a complete change of roles for me in Nanjing at the 2nd Summer Youth Olympic Games. The Rugby Sevens has finished so today my commentary roster had me heading out to the tennis complex for some broadcasts there. I worked with Auckland Glen Larmer (he's a great bloke - though he calls himself a 'former - Wellingtonian' which is interesting as he went to Naenae College) Read more »
Comments 0
The All Blacks began their defence of the William Webb Ellis Trophy...by beating England at Twickenham by 18-12.
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.
Which New Zealand Tennis Sponsor's representative always included two of his 'own' invented words in his speeches at the Heineken Open prize givings in the 2000s - and what were the words?
What do you think?
Click here to show the answer.