Ireland v New Zealand - the glory years

In the good old days, when the mud was ankle deep, hookers went down into a scrum straight into an evil finger in each eye from an opposing lock forward and testicles were squeezed like a lemon above a glass of gin and tonic, all was fair in love and war.

All over the fields of international rugby, personal battles were fought for integrity, pride and bragging rights. Ireland may never have beaten New Zealand but in 1963, they came within a trice of doing so and one of the greatest physical battles between two rugby men, was played out amidst that contest. Anyone who was at Lansdowne Road that day never forgot it.

As Ireland prepares to take on New Zealand again this Saturday, for the first time at Croke Park, it is worth recalling the towering heights of physicality and mental torment that two men, and others like them, once took into such a contest. Their personal battle defined matches between these two great rugby nations.

Willie John McBride talked about it years later in the story of his life. He wrote “I was the tallest forward in the Irish pack and was inevitably seen as the main source of line-out possession. Alas, the New Zealanders had obviously come to the same conclusion. So the nonsense began."

The 'nonsense' was McBride being blocked and pushed out of every early line-out. Very quickly, he realised there was only one solution to this difficulty and it did not involve calling the UN Secretary General and asking for him to intercede on his behalf. At the next line-out, at his signal, the ball was thrown to him. But he didn't jump. Instead, as the New Zealanders leapt across, he swivelled his whole body and sent a hammering punch right into the solar plexus of the All Blacks pack enforcer, the legendary Colin Meads.

The New Zealander was renowned as one of the hardest men the game had ever known yet he went down like a sack of spuds. For some minutes, he was on his knees, groaning and peering down at the Irish turf.

Ireland's captain Bill Mulcahy, McBride's fellow lock, was old enough to know the disadvantages of this policy.

'Jaysus McBride, do you realise who you just hit' he enquired?

'I don't know but I'm not having that treatment at every line-out' replied the great man.

'Christ, you hit Meads – now there's going to be trouble' responded his captain.

And there was for McBride. A fist came from somewhere and hit him flush in the face. 'I went down and I knew why I had got it. I could hear voices echoing around in my sub-conscious and I wasn't very well for a time. But I got up and survived.'

And at the next line-out, he jumped for the ball and won it. Cleanly.

Ireland didn't win that day. A try by Kel Tremain responded to a converted try by Johnny Fortune which had put Ireland 5-0 ahead. And in the second half, the mighty Don Clarke kicked a penalty goal to give New Zealand a 6-5 win.

Colin Meads remembers that day well. I ran into the great man in Wellington this summer during the Tri-Nations and he spoke of the respect and warmth he felt towards a fellow warrior like McBride. “It was like that in those days. You never held it personally against opponents; it was a hard game and you sorted out any disagreements on the field among yourselves.

“Those differences stayed on the field. When the game was over, you shared some times with your opponents and enjoyed their company."

It's all a bit different nowadays. But something else Meads talked about had a real resonance to today's rugby.

“I just wonder at the absence of rucking in the modern game" he told me. “They say today there is no fast, clean ball produced from the breakdown. Well there used to be because rucking meant you could get the ball back quickly and efficiently. Sure, if you were laying all over the ball on the wrong side, you knew what to expect. But the breakdowns were less messy because fast possession was possible."

Many people will feel that Meads is right. The sight of boots trampling on bodies might upset the queasy. But it stopped the cheats laying all over the loose ball and sealing it off. That has become one of the blights of the modern game.