Table of Contents

Contents:Foreword by Peter Bills 71 'My Ball' William Webb Ellis 112 '... And sent them homeward tae think again' 133 'Go North, Young Man' 164 haka and 'hen Wlad fy Nhadau' 195 Cabbage Patch Kids 256 A Real Allrounder 277 The Flying Scotsman on the Mumbles Road 298 Sweeping Them Off Their Feet 319 Slow too Quick for Springboks! 3310 The All Whites Beat the All Blacks 3411 The Russian Prince of Gwaun-cae-gurwen 3512 'Skrum, Skrum, Skrum' 3813 Doctor Do-it-all 3914 Keeping Up with the Joneses 4115 Morgan the Magnificent 4516 Vive la Revolution 4817 'We wuz robbed' 5118 D.K. Saves the Day 5419 All Black and Amber 5520 Whineray on his Way 5721 Sharp's Show and hancock's hour 5922 South Sea Sparkle in South Wales 6123 The Whip in the Wrists of Ken Catchpole 6324 Jarrett's Match 6525 The King and I 6626 Gerald of Wales 71Contents (continued)27 'Kirkie': Mighty not Mean 7328 JPR the Drop Goal Star 7529 Worldbeaters 7730 how, Why, When and Where? 7931 The Celt on the Veldt 8532 Kicks and Porta 9133 Serge and Swerve 9334 Stade de Twickers 9535 The Mazy Campese 9936 Try from the End of the World 10137 42 Million Supporters 10538 Of Amateurs, Shamateurs and Pros 10839 The Toonie Flip 11140 They Thought it was all Over 11341 May the Force be with You 11742 BOD Almighty 11943 Rugby World Cup Final 2003 12344 The Lions in Daniel's Den 12745 Endo to End Stuff 12946 Shane 13147 Sexton Refreshes the Parts... 13548 Grand Slam hat-trick 13749 Quick Draw McCaw and Mr Gym Shoes 14550 Miracle at Bordeaux 149Acknowledgements 152

About the Author

Former Cardiff, Wales, British Lions and Barbarians scrum half, Gareth Edwards is considered the world over to be one of the greatest players ever to have played rugby football. A poll of international rugby players, conducted by Rugby World, declared Gareth Edwards as the greatest player of all time in 2003 and he also topped the list of Will Carling's '50 greatest rugby players' published in The Telegraph in 2007. Born in Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, Edwards is one of a very select number of Welsh players to have won three Grand Slams. He continues to be a familiar face on the television as commentator and pundit for the BBC and S4C.

Reviews

If I was asked to choose my 50 greatest rugby moments, many – if not most of them – would involve Gareth Edwards. Here, the maestro chooses his own golden moments, spanning almost two centuries. In this lavishly illustrated and easily read volume, Edwards takes us on a world-wide rugby tour recreating his rugby highlights. Some of these moments were impromptu. Others were the result of pre-planning. They involve all the major rugby-playing nations. As the blurb notes, some recall last minute kicks that meant the world, and individual skills that were out of this world. He begins where and when it all began, at Rugby School in 1823 when a young man, rather than kick the ball, decided to pick it up and run. The rest is history. It is impossible to do justice to this fascinating volume in a few hundred words. I must therefore content myself with choosing my own five favourite moments from among Edwards’s 50. Some of them I myself witnessed, mostly on screen. Some have attained the status of rugby folklore. I have already referred to the William Webb Ellis episode. Let me next turn to ‘Haka and Hen Wlad fy Nhadau’, the chapter that recalls Wales’ 3 – 0 victory over the All Blacks at Cardiff Arms Park in 1905. This narrow victory, claims Edwards, in the first-ever encounter between the two countries established the game of rugby as the national game of Wales. My next choice is ‘The Russian Prince of Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen’. Edwards saw highlights of the England v New Zealand game of 1936 on Pathe News years later when ‘the exotically named’ Alexander Oblensky, prince and Imperial Horse Guard, scored one of the most talked-about tries of the 1930s. Next, let us go to Eden Park, Auckland, 1971, and the All Blacks v British Lions and J.P.R. Williams’s famous drop goal. Edwards names various acronyms involved with causing international mayhem (including the KGB, SAS and CIA), but JPR outdid them all. My fifth choice has to be ‘Grand Slam Hatrick’, recalling those great seasons of 2005, 2008 and 2012. ‘Winning one Grand Slam is a remarkable feat,’ says Gareth. ‘To win as many as three in seven years is unbelievable.’ Those are my choices. Tomorrow they will probably be totally different. Great Rugby Moments is a sporting literary treasure. Read it from cover to cover. Then use the lucky dip method. Open it at random and find a prize every time.
*Lyn Ebenezer @ www.gwales.com*