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6 May 2015
I consider it a very good fortune from my life to have visited the gravesite of the first All Black captain Dave Gallaher a number of times. I first went in 1991 with some All Blacks of the second Rugby World Cup team. But that day one of the team behaved very badly by goose-stepping between the rows and rows of quietly standing headstones. When the player even stuck two fingers under his nose and raised one arm in a disgusting 'Hitler Salute' as he marched I could have killed the young bastard!
But on other trips, sometimes with film crews or with All Black tour supporter's groups, it has always been a place of real reflection and respect. This time it was the same. We were a small family group and no one else was in the Nine Elms cemetery at Poperinge in Belgium when we arrived. I took the opportunity to write on a small cross the names of the people in our group and I pushed our modest tribute into the turf right there.
Dave Gallaher died in the battle of Passchendaele on October 17 2017. He had lied about his age to go and fight for his adopted country of New Zealand (remember he had been born in Northern Ireland).
World War I was his second entry into serious war experiences. He had been in the Boer War in 1899-1902 as well. By 1903 he was an All Black and in 1905 he led the famous 'Original All Blacks' on their superb tour of UK and France. As they were the first New Zealand team to be called 'All Blacks' Gallaher was therefore the first true 'All Black captain.'
It was a measure of the respect Aucklanders and Kiwis in general had for his memory that only five years after his death and burial all Auckland senior club rugby teams began to play, as they still do today, for the Gallaher Shield.
It was wonderful to be back to Poperinge again.
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This time it was in Delhi, India. New Zealand under captain D.J.Forbes and coach Gordon Tietjens beat Australia 24-17 in a thrilling final.
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.
How did the 1902-05 England and Great Britain player D.D.Dobson die?
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