Golden Anniversary of the Greatest Try

As rugby celebrates its bicentennial this year, the best play that the sport has ever seen -- Barbarians' opening score against New Zealand -- turns 50

Editor’s note: I have watched The Greatest Try dozens of times on YouTube over the years, but it was only today, when getting ready to post this piece, that I found the full match highlights from Barbarians v. New Zealand, 1973 — you can find that at the bottom. I’ve seen it so many times, but I still know nothing about the sport, despite having spent some late-night hours with it on in the background as I wrote. When I realized the 50th anniversary of my favorite play from a sport I don’t know anything about was coming up, I knew I wanted something on Willets Pen, so I reached out to someone who actually does know about the sport. And this is quite a story to try to write, as you hear in the commentary from Cliff Morgan, “If the greatest writer of the written word would've written that story no-one would have believed it.”

Michael Graham is a professional sports writer in England who I first encountered more than a decade ago when he was writing about Sunderland for Roker Report. He can now be found writing for Sports Illustrated’s Sunderland Nation, 90 Min, and Tennishead. And now, Willets Pen, where he’s gone through history and pieced together stories of Cardiff in 1973 (wrapping up a tour by the All Blacks that included Downing Stadium in New York in 1972)… for this 50th anniversary celebration and remembrance. —Jesse Spector

By Michael Graham

Rugby is not a thing of beauty. It was never supposed to be and it has never wanted to be. In fact, it is a sport that was literally born of a rejection of sporting beauty.

The origins of rugby are well documented. During a game of soccer, “the beautiful game,” in 1823 England, William Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran away with it instead. Thus, a new sport was invented, one that saw phalanxes of human flesh crash against each other to force a ball into a touchdown-style end-zone. There were to be no body pads and definitely no forward passes. Basically, anything that helped players advance the ball without putting their bodies on the line was a BIG no-no.

To succeed — well, to survive — in rugby you can either be big and strong or nimble and quick. Either is fine. Some, like the legendary and late Jonah Lomu, were all four. What you absolutely must be, though, is brave, because the first rule of rugby is that you must accept that you will be hunted down like a rabid dog should you ever dare touch the ball.

Does that make you want to play it yourself? Probably not, but plenty do and thank goodness they do, because it makes for a thrilling spectacle for the rest of us.

Sporting history is always a subjective thing, and that is part of its relentlessly enduring appeal. LeBron James or Michael Jordan? Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo? Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer? When it comes to rugby, though, there was a precise, universally accepted moment when it achieved perfection, and that moment celebrates its 50^th anniversary today.

Oddly, it didn’t technically occur in a competitive match. The Barbarians and the All Blacks was supposed to be an exhibition. That’s what the ticket said, at least, but everyone knew it wasn’t.

The Barbarians is an invitation-only rugby club in the United Kingdom. It was originally designed as a charity fund-raising club, but it has become a treasured piece of the British sporting landscape.

They get together a few times every year and generally face international teams. The most fierce, and feared, among them are the All Blacks of New Zealand. In fact, rarely has any sporting nation dominated as they have.

In 1973, the All Blacks arrived in the UK wounded, after the British Lions had beaten them on their own turf two years earlier. Not only was that unheard of in Rugby Union, it was also considered downright rude by the New Zealanders. Twelve of that Lions team were in the 15 that were to line up for the Barbarians in what the All Blacks considered a bit of a grudge match. It was time, the All Blacks thought, that those plucky Brits were put back in their place.

"The idea that it was an exhibition," explained the late John Pullin, who played hooker for the Barbarians that day. “That was thrown out the door right away. It was a needle match because it was the All Blacks and the Lions had beaten them on tour in '71 and they were going to beat us back, come what may."

But the All Blacks did not beat them. In fact, the Barbarians won the match 23-11, and they did it while achieving a level of combined panache, poetry and outright audacity that had never been seen before — or since.

Part of the try’s legend is that it happened so early in the game, when the crowd were at their most energetic. The All Blacks were at their most frantic too. They came out and swarmed all over the Barbarians, and they must have thought they had created a perfect pressure point when fly-half Phil Bennett found himself the last man, mere metres from his own try line.

The obvious play at that point, the “safe” play, was for Bennett to kick the ball into touch, conceding territory yet allowing his team to reorganise in defence. That was certainly what his teammates expected too.

Gareth Edwards, the eventual try-scorer, recalled: “The game had started at such a frantic pace, with lots of kicking back and forth, so I was absolutely breathless and really needed a moment's respite. When the ball went deep and I saw Phil was running back, I thought, 'Thank God for that, Phil will know exactly what to do. He'll kick it to touch.’”

Derek Quinnell, another who played a key role in what was to follow had similar thoughts. "I was coming back over the halfway line, getting my second wind,” he said. “I said to myself, ‘Kick it, Benny, for God's sake kick it.’”

And, had he done so, then that would have been that. However, sporting immortality is not built upon “safe.”

Inexplicably, or so it looked in the moment, Bennett instead decided to run the ball into a pack of aggressively advancing All Blacks. If you’ve ever seen The Matrix, it was akin to when Neo decides to stop running and face the super-powered, supposedly invincible agents head-on instead. His teammates were both aghast and at least half-expectant in their anticipated exasperation.

"Oh my God, here we go again,” recalled JPR Williams.¹ “Phil was always doing things like that. When I saw him choose not to kick it into touch, I knew what was going to happen: he was going to run the ball from our own 22."

Bennett, though, was feeling it that day. You utilize whatever you can to survive in rugby, and for him that meant the kind of twinkle toes and hip-wriggles that would not look out of place in a flamenco dance troupe. It was about to make him a sporting icon.

“The All Blacks were magnificent,” Bennett said. “They thrashed this side but what I noticed once or twice was one or two of the Neath lads sidestepped as the All Blacks flew at them and they went miles past. 'Gosh,' I thought to myself. So when I saw [All Blacks flanker Alistair] Scown coming at me, that was what I had on my mind: 'Come on then, you're going so fast, I'll beat you.'

"I sidestepped Scown and he went past me at a million miles an hour. But what I didn't realise was that there were three other guys [Ian Hurst, Peter Whiting, Ian Kirkpatrick] coming up behind him. By the time I had beaten Scown, there was another guy coming at me and I just thought, 'Oh, I've got to beat him as well,' and then there was another guy and another guy and all of a sudden you've beaten four players.

“It was off the cuff, but I had done similar things when I was playing for Llanelli [in Wales]. That was always the way I played, ever since I was a little kid playing 20-a-side in the park. I just loved beating people. It came naturally to me."

While Bennett danced around in circles, expertly avoiding being wiped out by a veritable hoard of angry All Blacks, it was clear that he wasn’t going anywhere and his luck was fast running out. Understandably happy with his work, he passed it on to JPR Williams, but in his desperation he didn’t do an especially good job of it.

"It was a bloody hospital pass, to be frank,” Pullin said. JPR Williams was ‘virtually decapitated,’ according to Edwards by on-rushing All Black Bryan Williams, who was keen on some immediate retribution for the humiliaton his teammates had suffered at the hands of Bennett.

At this point, the true majesty of what was being witnessed was starting to come into focus. This was sport in its purest form, when every piece of coaching and, frankly, good sense, was abandoned and raw sporting instinct had taken over in its stead.

Pullin was next to receive the ball. "JPR shovelled it on to me and I shovelled it on again to John Dawes. I had a bit of room but, to be honest, if I'd had a bit more, I would have booted the ball straight into touch."

But the ball wasn’t in touch. All of a sudden it was on the left-hand side of the pitch, and the Barbarians had an overload on the All Blacks. Organization in defense is everything in rugby, and the mighty New Zealanders had seen theirs completely broken down.

There was still a lot of work to be done, of course, a lot of yards to cover. The Barbarians had a secret weapon: the Welsh language.

Most of the players involved were from Wales, and that allowed them to keep the All Blacks guessing. “I realised the All Blacks defence was in disarray,” Edwards said. “John Bevan was on the wing but because I was coming up from behind I could see that the full-back, Joe Karam, had his eye on John. So by the time Derek [Quinnell] had the ball I shouted at him in Welsh, 'Throw it here, throw it here.'"

In many ways, Derek Quinnell gets the short end of the stick in this tale. After all, the only real difference between a nearly-man and a legend in sport is actually the moment before the moment – the assist.

“I handed it on to Gareth and all he had to do was run 40 yards and get it down. And they call it a Gareth Edwards try, I can't understand that,” Quinell joked.

Of course, there are those who claim the pass was actually intended for John Bevan, who was in a wider position. Quinnell denies that, but had it gone to Bevan, there would have been no try, no legend. The final devastating piece of the puzzle was a perfectly timed injection of pace from Edwards. The fact he was able to gather the ball at speed is what ultimately overwhelmed the All Blacks and made for such a thrilling spectacle.

That we are still talking about it 50 years later tells the real story, though. I personally can’t remember when I first saw it, because it happened before I was born. I can’t remember a time I was not aware of it, though. And, is that not the true hallmark of genuine sporting immortality? It becomes burned into our consciousness, almost as if we were born with it in our memory, and effortless endures.

"When Gareth scored in the corner, I was knackered (exhausted), to be honest,” said Barbarians prop Tommy David. “It was only after I came off the pitch, black and blue, covered in bloody stud marks, as the night went on and the beer went down, I realised what a great, great try it was. 'Pinch me,' I thought. 'Was I really involved?'“

More to read:

Andy Bull in The Guardian on the 40th anniversary of the try (the source for many of the player memories here)

The World Rugby Museum has the jersey Mike Gibson wore for Barbarians that day

History of the Barbarians from the club itself

And, as promised, the full game highlights…

1. John Williams in the play’s commentary. He became known as J.P.R. Williams later in 1973 to differentiate from fellow Welsh star J.J. Williams.