Fifty Years On - Carwyn James' Words Still Resonate

I BEGIN this post with a quote which is roughly 50-years old:

 

 

“This new midfield “crash-ball” is disaster – hunks of manhood with madness in their eyes, battering-ram bulldozers happy to be picked off on the gain-line by just-as-large hunks from the opposing side. For what? Just to do it all over again.”

I saw the above quote in this week's edition of The Guardian's Breakdown column. The words are those of the legend that is
Carwyn James, (pictured above), Welsh coach of the immortal Test series-winning 1971 British Lions.

James was speaking half a century ago, but, given what we see week after week on the rugby field, I fear the great man was whispering into the teeth of a hurricane. Can some coach please emerge willing to encourage his players, as James did, to: “think, think, think,” to look for and attack space – to make the ball do the work.

OK, I accept defensive standards have risen, and the players I am about to name-check were exceptional, but, to see Gareth Edwards spin passing the ball to Barry John, who took it right to the gain line, then fed it on, via finger-tip passing by Mike Gibson and John Dawes to give Gerald Davies, David Duckham or John Bevan the space and time they needed to get outside their markers and go for the line – that was far-more exciting than the bish, bash, bosh stuff we are fed today.

With a nod to the great Merle Haggard, I prefer the runnin' kind when it comes to rugby; can we maybe get back there.

LAST WEEK Ayrshire Bulls announced the appointment of Pat McArthur as their new Head Coach, to replace Peter Murchie, who has of course now gone upstairs to Glasgow Warriors.

I suspect Billy McHarg and Glenn Tippett played hard ball with Scotstoun in agreeing that deal, since the Bulls have today announced Pat's new coaching team, and it's a cracker.

Three new coaches have been named; they are: former Ayr and Scotland Club XV captain Dean Kelbrick, and two of Pat's long-term Warriors' team mates – Peter Horne and Rob Harley.

South African-born Kelbrick has, since hanging-up his boots, gained valuable coaching experience at grass-roots level. He has also been involved in coaching at age group level and has particular experience in guiding and encouraging young players.

Peter Horne has been gradually building-up his coaching experience over the past two or three years, and he has played a big part in mentoring and encouraging Ross Thompson's progress from Glasgow Hawks, via The Bulls to Warriors.

The Bulls appointment is Rob Harley's first dip into the coaching pool, however, as Warrior's appearance record holder – with over 200 games for the club, he is certainly well-equipped to demonstrate to his new charges the hard work and commitment necessary to ensure a lengthy professional career and advancing to international status.

It helps that all three assistants have played alongside Head Coach McArthur, while of course, all four have benefitted from what they have learned from the likes of Sean Lineen, Gregor Townsend and Dave Rennie.

The appointments demonstrate further – the FOSROC Super6 is going to be a key component in coach as well player development moving forward in Scottish Rugby.

LOOKING at the sheer size of some of the La Rochelle and Toulouse players involved in Saturday's Heineken Cup Final at Twickenham, I got to thinking back over my long career in sports-writing.

I remembered reading, shortly after Dai Young switched codes, leaving Cardiff and Rugby Union for Leeds and Rugby League in 1990, how the first thing Leeds did was put him on a fitness course, slimming him down by a couple of stones, so he could adapt better to the different role a prop played in League – fewer scrums, more ball-carrying.

Thirty years on, ball-carrying rather than scrummaging is also a Union prop's core skill – but, still, Union coaches seem obsessed with sheer poundage in the pack.

Maybe if some of the 20-stone-plus props we are now seeing were put on a different fitness regime, they might be able to last longer than 50-60 minutes of a game scheduled to last 80 minutes.

I was also thinking about my involvement with what was then, in the golden age of the sport in Scotland, one of our top basketball sides. The top sides then all had American imports, and with Scotland being traditionally a nation of aggressive wee men, the American imports tended to be really tall. I recall once, in a food queue in a motorway service area, finding myself standing between two Americans, one six foot ten, the other six foot nine – at six foot two, I felt like a pygmie.

Although it is a non-contact sport, basketball does call for certain players who need to not only be tall, but also genuinely big. The jostling for position under the boards demands a wee bit of bulk, and I recall our coach, driving down to meet his new Americans for the first time at the house we had rented for them, seeing our new six foot nine inch, 19 stone power forward emerging from the house.

The coach was still some distance away, but he admitted his first thought was: “Please God, let that be our power forward.” That American, who came from Butte, Montana, was naturally tall, but, he had acquired the bulk under a carefully-structured fitness plan at college, where, basically he ate, then trained. He was a big guy, but, he could get up and down the court for the duration of a game, without trailing behind; he was also “a leaper” able to get off the deck to win the ball easily.

The message of these preceding words is, maybe rugby's strength and conditioning regime is not as up to date as it might be.

The match itself on Saturday was somewhat disappointing; not a lot of French flair on show, very few outrageous off-loads or exciting, incisive running.

I felt this was a combination of two sides who knew each other intimately, fearful of making a mistake which could cost them a massively-important game. The truth is perhaps, in professional sport today, with the money involved, the “you must not lose,” mantra becomes all-important when the chips are down.

I did feel sorry for the BT Sport commentary team, with no English players to over-hype, they struggled, even BOD struggled – it is never easy for a Leinster man to praise a Munsterman, even one such as ROG, who was a team mate in so-many Irish sides.