Rugby: Wellington vs British & Irish Lions, 22-Jul-1977, Wellington, NZ
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- Опубликовано: 3 янв 2011
- Rescued excerpts from a rugby match between the Wellington Provincial Rugby Team (NZ) and the British and Irish Lions.
Played at Athletic Park, Wellington, NZ, on Friday 22 July 1977.
The final score was Lions 13 (Try Terry Cobner, 3 penalties Andy Irvine), Wellington 6 (2 penalties Richard Cleland). 
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The drainage system on many of the rugby stadium grounds in NZ back then left a lot to be desired! The Wellington rep team put up a good showing against the Lions in that game. That Lions forward pack developed into a formidable machine as the tour progressed.
Absolutely right.
Not to mention any names, but there was an element of excessive enthusiasm in games of that era and there was fine line between stomping and rucking. We all had scars.
Well done on catching Irvine after giving him a couple of yards........he was bloody quick in those days.
Real rugby, in real rugby conditions...........players these days don't know how lucky they are.
Absolutely agree, and JPR - a great rugby player in attach and defence. He would have easily made the transition to today's game.
My brother his mate and myself wagged school that day and went to the game ( from Wainuiomata), where our impression was that the Lion's would beat the All Blacks in the first test.
You can't tell from this footage but Phil Bennett seemed untackleable and Derek Quinnell was a man amongst boys.
We sat up in the Millard Stand cold, hungry and shitting ourselves from the height and the wind.
Great day, great memories.
Wonderful stuff, that muddy field reminds me of the Shannon domain, affectionately called the rec, or "wreck".....and that was at the start of the season!!
Shame JPR didn't make this trip. Lions forward power was immense but lost it in the backs.
Mud bath for sure. I remember watching ABs vs Scotland at Athletic Park in Wellington (same venue) and a try being scored at the southern end in about 100mm of water. Interesting decision for a referee as to whether the ball was "grounded". The cost of video tape in 1977 was prohibitive so most of the game was 'recycled'. This was all I could get hold of, special thanks to Keith Quinn. As to the experience - second to none for me - the Lions Team is a legend every time it steps out!
This was the year that Wellington received a heck of a lot of rain and parts of the Hut Valley flooded. Warrick if you think the condition of Athletic Park was bad for this match then you should have seen it when the New Zealand Juniors played Tonga on it in 1970. It was a quagmire and completely bald when the All Blacks returned from their tour to South Africa and played the Centurions on it (which was a disguised All Black Team). Centurions played well. Wellington won 31-28. Not long after the park was dug up and a drain was laid from the main scoreboard end diagonally across towards the small scoreboard on the Main Stand side. It alleviated much of the problems.
@@eamonstafford2056 Great to hear from you Eamon. We used to get some real curly weather conditions.
I think it was an All Blacks vs Wallabies game at Athletic Park where a try was scored at the southern end in a puddle that was so deep you couldn't have possibly grounded the ball - try awarded (fair enough). Thank goodness for drainage!
@@warrick.procter Thank you for the response Warrick. From what I saw of this match you played pretty well. From memory you played for the Wellington Club didn't you? Actually I was living in the Army living in Singapore when this game was played. A friend living in Wellington told me how bad that winter was. The ABs v Wallabies game sounds similar to the Abs V Scotland game where a portion of Eden Park was under water as well. I enjoyed many a great game at Athletic Park. My first ever game I went to was a Jubilee Cup final where Athletic beat University 24-6. Athletic had Neven McEwan, Russell Watt, Neville Bowerman playing for them and University had a very strong backline including Mick Williment, Ian Uttley and Garry Hermansson playing for them. Athletic won as they had a very strong forward pack. I was also at Athletic park the day Pierre Villepreux kicked that massive penalty against the ABs. Loved my Wellington sides especially loved Bill Freeman who was a great coach and a lovely man to talk to.
Andy Irvine was all class - on that tour, I saw him score five tries against King Country-Wanganui Combined, the last with a damaged leg that had him hobbling until he took the pass just outside his own 22 and then ran right through the Combined team to score.
He knew when stand back and think about things, though. I was at the Waikato game and Paul Anderson, the huge Waikato flanker, tore the ball out of a maul on his own 22 and came stampeding up the ground towards where I was watching. Irvine went in to tackle him and got a hefty fend in the face, After that, he ran alongside Anderson and let someone else pull him down.
Interesting fact: Irvine scored tries against every international team he played against, except the All Blacks.
MarsFKA You've got excellent recall! Thanks for the history. Maybe you and Keith Quinn should get together...
Thanks for the compliment, but I couldn’t match memories with Keith Quinn. He’s a walking encyclopaedia - my memories are mostly limited to games I saw.
These days you won't even see the forwards getting as muddy as the backs were during this game
Thanks Jack.
Real rugby conditions indeed. I remember my old coach Jack Oldershaw (fantastic coach) saying "You only get wet once!". There were still a few pairs of white shorts out there at the end though. :-)
The speed at which the ball comes out of those breakdowns is very impressive. I think the lawmakers should look seriously at what the laws were in 1977.
Also, the play at 3:10 is not pretty, but look how quickly that pesky Lion got the hell away from the ball. If players thought that was going to happen to them if they played the ball on the ground they'd stop it pretty damn quick.
Three games were played on Athletic Park during that tour: the First Test, the Wellington game and the Junior All Blacks, and each time the ground was in worse condition.
In the Junior All Blacks game, the first thing Stephen Pokere did after scoring was spit out a mouthfull of mud.
MarsFKA Athletic Park was a club ground as well as provincial rugby then internationals, so got a lot of action. in 77 we didn't have a lot of grounds that could seat a sizable crowd, so Athletic Park got to be overused. Still, different rules, low-scoring games mostly, mud was the same for both sides :-)
It also didn’t help that the winter of 1977 was very wet.
I always wondered how much better this lions side would of been if Gareth Edwards ; JPR Williams and Gerald Davies had decided to go ; the three of them turned down the tour ; can't blame them really they all toured new Zealand twice before and south Africa once I suppose it was just to much to ask before the game turned professional
They were a number of forwards the lions missed. New Zealand more or less beat the lions second team
@@mikemorgan7893 can you remember who ?
hywel williams Peter Dixon Fergus Slattery Roger Uttley Geoff Wheel Nigel Horton who was on the tour but was injured and had to go home
@@mikemorgan7893 Geoff wheel wasn't picked for the tour failed the medical apparently , Fergus Slattery great player 👍
hywel williams well he was persuaded to withdraw
a Citing official would today have a bumper file on his desk.
tidy, tidy!
What a disgrace it was making international teams play at Athletic Park. A filthy muddy surface. Unbelievable.
The BBC only showed highlights of the lions games on that tour.The rugby they played was so awful they looked bad even on the highlights
What a dickhead you are
*....but wait - can't you see that Holzer mane....*
JPR was good for one thing - eating the great John Ashworth's boot
If you compare playing ability, scum ashworth wasn't fit to tie the great JPR's boots.
Ashworth deliberately stamped on him. It was dirty play at its worst. I never had much respect for Ashworth before that and absolutely none afterwards.
NZer speaking here...
Sorry for a late response... Yes, things have changed.
I suspect that there was a reluctance for referees to take punitive action apart from penalties as there was no sin-bin and sending off in an international was a rare and extreme measure. However, our historic behaviours and associated prison sentences often seem out of step with today, so too our historic sports events. I urge you not to watch any ice hockey. :-)
From memory judicial committees loved anything that would get them together, including putting the boot into the previous Saturdays sent off scoundrels......it all meant a cosy evening after the inquisition sampling the top shelf in the copiously stocked union bar!
Even at poxy Levin Domain, located right in the heart of the grandstand, the bar was better stocked than any of the local Horo. pubs!
Yes the weather stuffed up many a very good team visiting Wellington. I have a video of a very strong Northern Transvaal team who played Wellington circa 1993. They lost to Wellington 19-0 because they did not understand the variances of Wellington wind. Also I saw it happen to a good Waikato team too. Regarding Bernie's head high here, yes he did reform in the later part of his career for Wellington. On one occasion Wgton was playing Taranaki at Athletic Park. The Taranaki winger took the tackle just a wee bit too far over the touchline and was on the ground. Bernie was on his feet and recoiled to hit him. Forward went Bernie's arm only to point at the winger (who had raised his arms to protect himself) whereby Bernie called out to the Naki player ' Gotcha' and he got up and ran away.