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The great night scene at Edinburgh before the All Blacks v Scotland game on Saturday.
15 November 2014
Match Review - New Zealand v Scotland
I've got to be honest here, in the touring All Black Supporter's bus I was in last Saturday in Edinburgh as we headed out to Murrayfield to see New Zealand play their rugby test against Scotland I told our people on the microphone that 'if Scotland are EVER going to beat the All Blacks then tonight's the night!'
I said it with much firmness! And I meant it too!
But moments later when someone handed me a clipboard and asked me to put a pound into the kitty and 'pick a score' I promptly wrote down 'All Blacks 41 Scotland 21.'
So I kinda thought New Zealand would win it OK - though there was that niggle in me that Scotland's team could be a downright nuisance in the game. They had won well the previous week against Argentina and their team was the same to play New Zealand.
But Scotland could not win it. It was a tough game, just like last week's at Twickenham, really - and this All Black team knows how to win it seems - whatever circumstances are thrown at them and whoever is playing in the black shirts (where one still can't see the numbers!).
But who could be satisfied at the bumbling, fumbling, effort of mixed messages which New Zealand put on?
Actually firstly, I blame the coach Steve Hansen. Yes, I know he has to give players in his party of 35+ who are all fit and keen, game time on the playing fields while they are here, otherwise they sit around and probably start to grumble and plot that he's a bastard for NOT giving them game time.
But on the other hand if you put out a team with 13 changes from the week before, with players out of position all over the park, how can they be expected to be fired up and looking like a team unit straight out of the sheds and into a test match?
Obviously they can't or couldn't against brave, fiery Scotland. That much was confirmed by the lack of cohesion, teamwork, and backs-forwards togetherness from the All Blacks from start to finish.
Scotland on the other hand played with 110% zest from start to finish. Their lineout was very impressive, the two Grey brothers (looking like Ben Nevis and Ben Lomond - two mountains), their scuttling loose men were very committed (including a former Wellington lad Ben Cowan playing the game of his life) and in a couple of other players, like the runaway try-scorer Tommy Seymour and fly half Finn Russell, they had the best players on the field.
Of the All Blacks I liked Charles Piutau on one wing but was confused to see Colin Slade on the other. Someone told me Shaggy Hansen would be wanting to see how much of a 'utility' Slade really is. When sometimes Slade looked slow and uncomfortable was alarming to note.
But actually no other All Blacks impressed; and even some, like Dan Carter and T.J.Perenara close to the scrums, sometimes were way short of a good international standard.
Sad to say that eh? What is the future for both these men we may ask more and more in the weeks ahead. Especially as one is so young and the other so new.
.....
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13 August 1921
The All Black - Springbok rivalry starts
On the first tour of NZ by South Africa, Carisbrook in Dunedin hosts a 13-5 victory for the All Blacks.
EDWARDS, GARETH
Cardiff and Wales
53 internationals for Wales 1967–78
10 internationals for British Isles 1968–74
Gareth Edwards was one of the most widely acclaimed rugby players of all time – a brilliantly versatile halfback and a strong physical competitor who captured the imagination and admiration of players and followers all over the world.
Edwards first came to prominence outside Wales as a teenager on the Cardiff club’s tour of South Africa in 1967, where he played in a number of positions in the backline. Once back in Wales his enormous talents were soon focused on scrumhalf play. He was chosen for his country three months before his 20th birthday and was never dropped until his retirement. Ten years later, with 53 caps, he had set a record for most internationals for Wales, which stood until passed by J.P.R. Williams in 1981. Edwards’s tests were consecutive – both a world record then, and a monumental feat.
In all his internationals, he was in the losing side on no more than 15 occasions. He scored 20 tries in internationals, at the time also a Welsh record, although later equalled by Gerald Davies and later still passed by Ieuan Evans and Gareth Thomas. Edwards’ total of 63 internationals was also, in its time of few tests in any year, the world’s highest for a scrumhalf. He was Wales’s youngest ever international captain (20 years, seven months in the match against Scotland in February 1968).
At the time of his debut for Wales, in the Five Nations match v France in 1967, Edwards was a physical education student at Cardiff Training College. Later, he switched clubs to Cardiff and became a successful businessman. Later still, at the end of his playing days, he was a media commentator and reporter on the game.
A master of the spin-pass, Edwards had all the other attributes of the complete scrumhalf. His kicking was skilful, his running devastating to any of the opposition that could stay near his electric bursts, and his competitiveness was relentless. He dominated many matches simply because of his presence on the field. He was a brilliant opportunist and scorer of tries.
Perhaps the only aspect of his game that did not reach the highest level was as a captain. Many people felt he was inhibited slightly as a leader, with the result that other Welshmen came past him to lead the national XV. He did not resent this, rather it allowed him to return his full concentration to the scrumhalf role. In all, he was captain of his country in 13 tests.
Edwards played superbly in partnership with that other great Welsh personality, Barry John. The two were together as a scrum-outside half combination on 23 occasions, then the world record. Edwards was part of the great era in Welsh rugby that followed almost exactly the dates of his career. He also played superbly for the British Isles in New Zealand in 1971 and in South Africa in 1974. Both those series were won during what were some of British rugby’s greatest days.
He took part in and, indeed, scored the try that is often hailed as one of the greatest ever seen in the game. It was for the Barbarians club against the All Blacks of 1972–73 at Cardiff. The capacity home crowd of 60,000 roared so loudly they distorted forever the television recordings of Edwards diving in at the end of a 90-metre movement.
Edwards possessed a most charming and modest personality, and became in his time one of the most revered characters in Wales – and the rest of the rugby world.
In 1997 he was one of the first players inaugurated into the International Rugby Hall of Fame.
Stories abound about Gareth Edwards’ prowess at the game. One story has it that on the day of an England-Wales game at Twickenham, one Welsh supporter could not get a ticket so he waited forlornly outside the ground hoping at least to soak up some of the atmosphere and to hear the result. Eventually he became frustrated at not knowing what was happening in the game, so he called up to some people who were in the ground and asked them what was happening. They happened to be English, so they called back ungraciously that all the Welsh team except Gareth Edwards had been carried off injured. This disturbed the already sad Welsh supporter, but he remained typically optimistic. When a huge roar erupted from the ground a few minutes later, he again called up to the crowd. ‘What’s happened, what’s happened?' he said, 'Gareth scored, has he?’
Such a story is typical of the admiration and affection that existed for one of the greatest of rugby men.
From Wyn Gruffydd - the Welsh broadcaster; 'How Do You Know a girl from Cardiff has had an Orgasm?'
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