Barbarians vs All Blacks 1973

Just watched this match last night for the 1st time ever and can see
why a lot of people claim it was the best ever!

The physical aspect of the game obviously couldn't compare to todays
sport but the ball skills and pure invention was fantastic - yes I know
it was the Baa-Baas and that's the way they play but being an England
rugby fan it's not often I get to see that (except from those not
wearing white).

Couple of points that I found amusing were the Haka - it was a shambles
and didn't look menacing at all. All (?) white guys looking like they
were being electrocuted (one or two even looked embarassed?). Compared
to Weepu's wide-eyed "slit yer throat" routine it was very funny. And
whose idea was it to throw-in the ball as if it was a grenade as hard &
fast as possible and hope someone batted it down in the right
direction?

Having heard all about the Welsh players of the 70's and now having
seen them, bloody hell! Edwards and JPR Williams were a class above
weren't they? I could probably name 20 players from the match that
were outstanding but for me those 2 were head shoulders above the rest.
I thought the little winger Batty was pretty good as well - I suspect
all those people who say Shane Williams is too small (myself included)
should rethink their opinion.

I was actually expecting the match to be all rolling mauls and scrums
every 5 seconds so to see a game of running flowing rugby was
incredible.

I think we should start a petition to make the IRB change the lineout
law resulting from a penalty back to what it was originally to make
teams run the ball more.

Kamal

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