If the forwards comprise a side’s engine room, and the backs
provide the navigation and ammunition, then the scrum half is the man who fires
the ship’s guns. As a vertically-challenged weed, I was mostly petrified at the
prospect of having to play rugby at school. And yet, through years of watching
the game, I had an advantage of recognising the rules and strategies involved.
There was only one possible position I could have filled
with any hope of getting out alive, and that was scrum half. He tended to be
the smallest player on the pitch, whose responsibility was to feed the ball
into the scrum, retrieve it and pass to the backs before being hammered by his
opposite number or, worse, trampled under the hooves of the herd of wildebeest
that was the opposing pack. There was also the responsibility of attending
every breakdown, every tackle, every ruck, reaching into the bundle, extracting
the oval nugget and launching another phase. In other words, the number nine
was always in the thick of it and needed to be fit, agile and quick
with the pass,
Thankfully I never needed to test my ability in practice but
I developed admiration for those who performed the role for their nations. One
of the first who grabbed my attention was New Zealand’s Sid Going. His bald head and
sumptuous sideburns made him stand out physically amidst the All Blacks’
formidable forwards during much of the Seventies and it was during the 1972-73
tour of Britain that I watched him devastate most of the teams they faced. He
had a fair few tussles with Gareth Edwards, notably in the barnstorming
Barbarians clash. Indeed it was Going’s early positive breaks which indirectly
led to The Greatest Try Ever scored against
the All Blacks and finished, of course, by Edwards.
Possibly the tiniest rugby international I ever saw was
Jacques Fouroux,
‘le Petit General’ who was an
instrumental figure in the French Grand Slam of 1977 as captain and, a decade later, twice more as
manager. He was apparently a feisty fellow on and off the pitch, and his
all-action style belied his lack of height behind such huge team-mates as Dauga
and Bastiat. I also have fond memories of Roy Laidlaw (uncle of current
Scottish incumbent Greig) and Ireland’s Peter Stringer who, despite his skinny
physique, wasn’t afraid to make a brave tackle. What amused me most was
when, during the singing of the Irish national anthem, the close-up camera
tracking the faces of the Fifteen would have to dip suddenly so as not to miss
Stringer altogether. Shoulder to shoulder? Shoulder to Donncha O’Callaghan’s
belly, more like!
Scrum halves haven’t all been undersized. Terry Holmes
struck me as being unusually tall back in the late Seventies, South African World
Cup-winning stalwart Joost van der Westhuizen was six foot two and the
current game encourages big scrum-halves as standard. The excellent Conor
Murray and veteran Welshman Mike Phillips spring readily to mind.
Like those two, George Gregan wasn’t a goal kicker but
he was a phenomenon both in attack and defence during 139 appearances for
Australia. The Wallaby’s exact contemporary, Alessandro Troncon, was another cap
centenarian and one I loved watching in the Six Nations. Dubbed ‘Trunky’ by us
at home, the Treviso scrum half was the stockier and balder part of Italy’s vastly
experienced half-back partnership with Diego Dominguez. I can’t believe it’s
eleven years since he stepped down; my winter rugby watching has not been the
same since.
In his final Six Nations season, Troncon contributed to
Italy’s victories over both Wales and Scotland but they didn’t overcome the
French until 2011. During much of the twenty-first century, France have fielded
either Dmitri Yashvili or Morgan Parra at nine, and both have
been heavy scorers with the boot. The left-footed Parra was just 21 when he
steered les Bleus to the 2010 Grand
Slam and he’s still going strong.
However, possibly the greatest of them all quit the game
forty years ago. They didn’t play as many Tests in those days so he left with
only 53 national and Lions caps to his name. On the other hand, he left those
of us around at the time with so many amazing memories, fortified by the
YouTube archive. I’m referring to Gareth Edwards. It helps that so many of
his tries were exhilarating works of art, notably ‘That Try’ for the Barbarians
at the Arms Park, and that for Wales he played alongside such a gifted bunch of
backs. As a scrum half he was a leading exponent of the long reverse pass,
something I don’t recall seeing for yonks, and was also an outstanding kicker
and all-round athlete. Sir Gareth – he was belatedly knighted in 2015 – is also
impossible to forget here in Cardiff as any shopping trip to the St David’s
Centre inevitably takes me past a bronze sculpture of him in pre-pass pose.
From Edwards and Going to Murray and Laidlaw, scrum halves
have been the pivotal performers of great teams. Individually they represent
the best of rugby: creativity, pace and strength and the occasional
spine-tingling, rip-roaring score.
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