The First XV: A Selection of the Best Rugby Writing

By Gerald Davies

A collection of biographical, anecdotal, and literary essays on Britain's consuming passion for rugby, this account describes the exploits of the people’s heroes from Gould to Gareth Edwards. The beauty and exhilaration of the game is vividly recaptured in classic prose, as are the emotions and expectations of the most passionate rugby aficionados in the world. From the humorous to the erudite, this selection features work from the likes of Richard Burton, Frank Keating, John Morgan, Dylan Thomas, Alan Watkins, and Harry Webb.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Parthian Books
• Release date: Apr 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781908069207

Book preview

HARRI WEBB

Vive le Sport

Sing a song of rugby,

Buttocks, booze and blood,

Thirty dirty ruffians

Brawling in the mud.

When the match is over,

They’re at the bar in throngs,

If you think the game is filthy,

Then you should hear the songs.

from The Green Desert (1969)

W.J.TOWNSEND COLLINS

The Master of Supreme Achievement

All my life through I have had a capacity for hero-worship. Whenever I have found greatness of character, intellect, skill, or kindliness it has been a joy to pay tribute to it. Yet, side by side with willingness to admire and praise (in connection with Rugby football and all else), has been an inability to ignore faults and shortcomings. In the early ’Nineties I thought Arthur Gould the greatest Rugby player I had ever seen. Today, after sixty years of football criticism, I think of him still as the greatest player of all time. There were days when he fell short of his own standards, and I criticised his play accordingly (much to the annoyance of some of his idolatrous admirers); yet, in spite of occasional defects, he seemed then, and to me remains, the master of supreme achievement. How wonderful were the days when Arthur Gould was the bright particular star of Invincible Newport and Invincible Wales! Under the heading of ‘The Prince of Players’, I wrote in 1893 or 1894 two articles which gave a full account of his career till that time. Its completeness was due to the fact that I had access to a newspaper cutting book in which Arthur Gould’s admiring sister had kept records of most of the matches in which he had played. His career was remarkable in its variety. Though Newport was his home, and early and late he played for the Newport team, he spent long periods in other districts, part of the time associated with a brother who was a public works contractor. He played for the Southampton Trojans, the London Welsh, and Richmond; for Hampshire, South Wales, and Middlesex; from 1885 till 1897 he was assured of his place in the Welsh team, of which he was the accepted captain for years. Those who never saw him in his heyday can have little conception of his physical powers and the keen brain which directed and controlled them. He was a track sprinter only two yards outside evens; and a great hurdler who several times was second in the English championship. As a footballer he had all the gifts, and they had been developed by thought and constant practice. Some boys when they begin to play Rugby football find that they dodge, swerve, and side-step naturally – it is not a question of thought, it is an animal instinct. Arthur Gould was one of them. He dodged or swerved away from a tackler instinctively; but before he had gone far he had learned to study the capacity of his fellow players and the defensive powers of his opponents, knew what he was doing, why he did it, and how it was done. Other players, on their inspired days, have gone through their opponents – swerving, side-stepping, dodging with easy mastery which made the defence look silly; other centres have made perfect openings and unselfishly given their wings chances to score; other men have nipped their opponents’ attacks in the bud by the quickness with which they smothered man and ball, or by intercepting passes; others have tackled man after man or compelled them to pass to avoid being taken with the ball; but no three-quarter I have known has maintained the high level of attainment in attack and defence so long and so consistently as Arthur Gould – no man has shown such uniform brilliance and resourcefulness over so long a period of years. He was in first-class football from 1882 till 1898; he first played for Wales against England in 1885, and his last game was against England – at Newport in 1897 – twenty-seven matches, at that time a record. And when comparison is made with the records of other players it must be remembered that in his day there were no matches with France, New Zealand, South Africa, or Australia to swell the record, and that he was in the West Indies in 1889. As a boy he played at three-quarter, but it was as a stop-gap full-back that he entered the Newport XV. His first game was prophetic. ‘Kick, you young devil!’ shouted the Newport Captain, for he was playing a three-quarter game; but twice he ran through the Weston-super-Mare team and scored tries. As a full-back he played for Newport for three seasons; he got his cap for Wales first as a full-back; but when he had a chance to play at three-quarter he soon made his mark. In those early days he was famous as a kicker, and one season dropped twenty goals; but he was known also for his speed and elusiveness, and for the wonderful quickness of his punting. Thereby hangs a tale. Arthur Gould was left-handed and left-footed; he kicked instinctively with his left foot. But when his opponents found that he could kick only with one foot, they played on him from their right and smothered his kicks. When he found what was happening, he practised kicking with his right foot so assiduously that he became as good with one foot as the other, and the late W.H.Gwynn, of Swansea, Secretary to the Welsh Rugby Union, who told the tale, concluded, ‘And you simply couldn’t prevent him from getting in his kick.’ Never did a rugby player work harder to improve his natural gifts and perfect his technical equipment. As time went on, he became sparing of his efforts to drop goals, and concentrated upon running through the defence or making openings for his wings. In his closing years his defence was criticised, and it is true that often in those late days he would not go down to the ball, and obviously avoided clashes with big forwards who were bearing down on him; while too often he tried to intercept a pass instead of going for the man with the ball. This of course was a defect – it counts against him. But he had taken a lot of battering, and had suffered many injuries in the earlier years, when his defence was the admiration of friend and foe. Indeed, after the Welsh victory over Scotland at Newport in 1887-8, Charles Reid, the greatest of Scottish forwards, said publicly that he had never known a man who did more for his team than Gould did that day. When Gould ran, he carried the ball in both hands; often as he side-stepped an opponent he raised the ball at arm’s length above his head; sometimes from that height he gave a downward untakeable pass. I mention faults developed late in