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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.
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It was the Welsh RU's 100th Centennial game. Expectations were high in Cardiff that day for a big home win but Graham Mourie's All Blacks took the cake 23-3!
ANDURAN, JOE
Universitaire de France and France
1 international for France 1910
This player is another of rugby’s unusual internationals from early in the twentieth century.
Joe Anduran, an art dealer, was in his shop in Paris one day when a taxi pulled up outside and several officials of the French Rugby Federation climbed out. Apparently they had just seen the French team depart from the railway station as they headed off to play Wales in Swansea on New Year’s Day, 1910. But only 14 Frenchmen had gone on the train; the 15th was held up in Bordeaux while doing his military service.
So the officials were sent on an urgent errand around Paris to find another forward for the game to be played next day. Their search eventually took them to Joe Anduran’s art shop. Anduran was a useful club player in Paris but nothing more, and at first he thought it was a joke when the strangers asked him if he wanted to play for France the next day. He was persuaded to leave immediately, but he soon found his first obstacle in making the trip to Swansea was not so much the booking on the cross-channel ferry, but his wife!
Madame Anduran, it seems, did not share her husband’s pride in being selected to play for France – she had made arrangements for Joe to do some family visiting with her the next day. However, soon Joe Anduran was on the train for Swansea, where the next day he ran on to St Helen’s field for his debut for France.
Wales won the game by the handsome margin of 49 points to 14. Not surprisingly, Joe Anduran was one of those who was axed by the French selectors in their reshuffle of the badly beaten team and he was never seen again in the French colours.A good story for the history books though!
What age was Gareth Edwards when he became the world’s youngest test captain?
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