Bill Beaumont: The Autobiography. Bill Beaumont

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СКАЧАТЬ I felt a lot better after that, I grappled with Willie-John after Ireland had taken a short penalty, and we ended up with a scrum when he was unable to release the ball. At least, after that, I felt I had got involved but I’m the first to admit that my contribution wasn’t great. Our hooker, John Pullin, didn’t throw the ball to me even once at the line-out, a tactic that I suspect had been planned beforehand in a bid to keep the pressure off me as much as possible.

      We lost the game 12–9 with Billy McCombe proving the match-winner for Ireland, but we had murdered them up front, where Ralston gave Moss Keane a very hard time in the second row and Andy Ripley got the better of Willie Duggan, who I later came to know as quite an entertaining tourist. I know I’m not the first player to say that his international debut went by in a flash but that’s exactly how it seemed, the sheer pace of the game taking me by surprise. That may explain why I wasn’t able to make the impact in the loose that I had always endeavoured to do since moving into senior rugby.

      Largely through the efforts of the pack, we actually led 9–6 with time running out, but our full-back, Peter Rossborough, slipped as he went to take a pass from scrum-half Jan Webster and McCombe swept up the loose ball to score and add the conversion. I remember slumping on to the bench in the dressing room afterwards and bursting into tears in sheer frustration as I tried to sort out in my mind what I might have done wrong or could have done better.

      From the team’s point of view I believe England would have been better served if, instead of me, the selectors had opted for Nigel Horton or any one of several other decent second rows who had been around rather longer than I had and, as a result, were more experienced. I suppose common sense prevailed in that I wasn’t picked for any of the remaining games that season, but even though my debut hadn’t been the outstanding success I had hoped for I was happy to have joined what I saw as a very exclusive club and determined to work even harder at my fitness and to learn from the experience.

      John Burgess consoled me in the dressing room afterwards and I soon perked up because I was about to embark on the real business of a rugby weekend in Dublin. The feet that I can’t remember anything of what happened after the dinner, a very sociable affair as you might expect knowing what good hosts the Irish are, is neither here nor there. There were, I was assured, not just players but also thousands of fens experiencing what you might call ‘lost-weekend syndrome’. My abiding memory of that dinner is noting the affection with which Willie-John was so obviously held when he stood up to make his traditional speech. He had long been my idol and, having played against him and experienced the remarkable presence of the man, I was more determined than ever to make it as a rugby player.

      Roger Uttley had recovered from his back injury so was able to resume instead of me when England played France at Twickenham. I had expected nothing less but at least I was named on the bench so I assumed I couldn’t have done too much wrong in Dublin. For a moment towards the end of that game it looked as though Roger, having provided me with my first cap, would provide my passport to a second, as he was led from the field with blood gushing from a gash on his ear that later required 18 stitches. I was dispatched to the players’ tunnel to prepare myself for combat but found the team doctor, Leo Walkden, busily taping Roger’s head before sending him back into the fray.

      England lost that game, too, 27–20, and that led to changes that didn’t help my cause as the selectors frantically tried to avert a whitewash. Andy Ripley was left out and Roger Uttley moved into the back row. Although that left a vacancy in the second row they brought back Nigel Horton to partner Chris Ralston and, with a second row now in the back row, England needed a back row player rather than a second row like myself on the bench.

      In those days England had an appalling record against Wales in Cardiff and 1975 was no exception. We were beaten 20–4 and that led to the axe swinging once more with Horton, Peter Wheeler and John Watkins the victims. Fran Cotton was ill, so Mike Burton was brought in to replace him and, in typical Burton fashion, he asked if he was also taking over the captaincy. There’s nothing like cheek, but it was Tony Neary who took on that responsibility for the first time.

      Scotland were on for a rare Triple Crown when they travelled to Twickenham for the final game of a disappointing English season and they should have won the match. Dougie Morgan missed two simple penalties late in the game and England hung on to win 7–6 – hardly the best preparation for a summer tour to Australia. By that stage I had increased my training schedule, having acquired a rather better understanding of what was required to play consistently well at the top level, and I went back to enjoying my club rugby at Fylde. There was also greater recognition, because I was picked to play for the Barbarians on their traditional Easter tour to South Wales, travelling down in my maroon Austin Maxi along with Tony Richards, Dave Robinson – a tough Cumbrian farmer who played for Gosforth and later became an England coach – and my old partner Richard Trickey.

      We partnered each other again in the opening game against Penarth. I wasn’t included against Cardiff but was back in the side for what proved to be a very hard game against Swansea. That’s when I came up against Geoff Wheel for the first time. Swansea had a decent side at that time and we had to play well to win but I was convinced that my own game was improving all the time, having started playing against the best second rows in Britain. I was also keen to be seen playing well because I was desperate to earn a call-up for the tour to Australia. My reasoning was that England had experienced a poor season and that a tour was the ideal vehicle for bringing on one or two young players.

      When the touring party was announced it was just one of many botch jobs by the selectors and it is not difficult to see the wisdom of having one man responsible for picking the side, as Clive Woodward, England’s head coach, does now. He has other experienced coaches he can talk to, but at the end of the day it is his decision and, in the case of failure, his neck that is on the block. I always felt that selection by committee was flawed and that too many good players were denied an opportunity because of wheeler-dealing, one selector supporting a player from a different region in return for securing support for a protégé of his own. That is hardly the way to mould a successful side. Nowhere has bad practice been more apparent than in schoolboy rugby, where the old-school-tie network still works today.

      While I had been confident that the selectors would give one or two young players an opportunity, including me, I hadn’t expected them to go overboard. Far too many experienced players were jettisoned and it wasn’t difficult to work out why I was in the touring party when I saw that the experienced Chris Ralston and Nigel Horton were being left at home. Of the four half-backs in the party only one had actually won a cap, Bedford fly-half Neil Bennett having made his debut against Scotland in the final game of that season’s Five Nations Championship. Alan Wordsworth, the other fly-half, and scrum-halves Brian Ashton and Peter Kingston, didn’t possess a cap between them. I found it absolutely staggering that they had completely ignored what I regarded as the best half-back pairing in the country, Steve Smith and Alan Old.

      Peter Rossborough and Tony Jorden had both played at full-back that season but were ignored, while the untried Peter Butler and Alistair Hignell were called up. Of the four second rows Roger Uttley was clearly very experienced but I had just one cap and the other two, Bob Wilkinson and Neil Mantell, were uncapped. Perhaps the selectors had decided on a very experimental approach because Australia had performed poorly on their last visit to the UK but, as I was to discover, Australians are tough nuts to crack in their own backyard.

      I felt sorry for our coach, John Burgess, because he soon found himself condemned to making what he could of a thoroughly bad job and the tour was to end his dream of turning England into a major force in world rugby. Before transforming the fortunes of Lancashire and the North West, Burgess had spent hours picking the brains of former All Blacks coach Fred Allen and studying the way the best side in the world went about its preparation. He had so much to offer England but was denied the opportunity by ludicrous selections and undisguised hostility in certain quarters. Players like Fran Cotton, Tony Neary and I knew what John was about. We knew what made him tick and what he was trying to achieve СКАЧАТЬ