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You are here: Home » Favourite Photos » A recent find; this great pic of 1966-70 All Black captain Sir Brian Lochore (With a story behind it)
25 January 2015
The 1970 tour of South Africa by the All Blacks should have been a great experience for the All Black captain Brian Lochore. For tough reasons it did not turn out that way.
Brian was given a great looking 30-man All Black squad when he left New Zealand for the three month tour of the Republic. But he broke his hand in a tour warm-up game in West Australia on the way over and missed the first five matches in South Africa. Then his star lieutenant Colin Meads broke his arm and struggled thereafter. These disruptions could not have helped.
New Zealanders also say 'home' South African refereeing in the test matches did not help either. The All Blacks tumbled to a 1-3 test series loss. Lochore played all four tests but Meads could only battle through the last two.
I like this picture of Lochore as it shows him in a kind of portrait pose against the glare of a white hot South African rugby afternoon. I have a recall of rugby in those days in South Africa being played on dull brown, rock hard fields. I saw it for myself when as a young reporter, I watched the 1976 All Blacks.
You can see Lochore was playing here while still in the wars, his hand is still being protected from his injury here and there is claret around the mouth and nose. Those were tough times on the rugby field. Rugby union and rugby league players in those days used to say; 'You took it and you gave it - and you never grumbled.'
Remember Colin Meads did not so much 'break his arm' on that tour; more like 'his arm was broken for him' (my quote) from the stomp of a South African forward in a provincial game.
Mind you, the New Zealand people loved both Meads and Lochore so much that they were both later Knighted for their 'Services to Rugby.'
(And quite right too!)
Comments 0
1932-34 All Black Ernest "Ned' Barry was born on this day; he and his son Kevin (1962-64) and Liam (1993-1995) became the first 'three-generation' All Black family.
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.
Who was the player in the All Blacks 1991 World Cup team who played in one test (against Italy) and never played for the All Blacks at any level before or after that game?
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