Wonderful side, and coached by Carwyn James, a coaching genius, unappreciated in his own country. Very few players leave New Zealand with an enhanced reputation, but many of them did. Barry John ( rip) left with the nickname of the King, there can be no greater compliment from a rugby mad nation
I love that understatement: "I had the privilege of playing with a backline that consisted of (lists icon after icon) so if this team is better than that they're probably going to be quite good."
When i was a kid watching with my dad 5 Nations games i loved firstly Andy Irvine, Serge Blanco, John Rutherford, Didier Camberabero,Jonathan Davies and Olly Campbell any Fly Half or Full back who was magic in the early 1980s, but he always just said "son youve never seen anything like Barry John. He said it was like the difference between watching Pele and Maradona, one was great when i was young but the other would always be the best.
David Dai Duckham passed a few days ago.We suspected that if given the ball, which sadly he never got in poor England sides he would shine.AND, alongside the Welsh wizardry of Edwards,JPR,Barry John, the genius of Mike Gibson, who the All Black's revered as the key man,he duly did. Culminating in his dazzling, dashing sidestepping brilliance as Man of the match for the Ba Bas/all blacks classic in 1973. That 1971 back line was majestic.Real genuine pace throughout too.They could, every one of them sidestep, great balance. Barry John left the big all black forwards chasing shadows+ floundering in his wake. Every member of that backline has their own particular brand of magic and gifts. I still love watching old footage of them over and over again.
Carwyn James was a very smart man and a great coach, coached Llanelli, Barbarians and Lions to victory over New Zealand, but was rejected by the powers that be in the Welsh Rugby Union, and never coached his beloved Wales.
The early seventies for me is the greatest period of UK rugby. Two winning lions tours to SA and NZ says it all. The Baabaas win in 1972/73 was the crowning moment with the Gareth Edwards try still rated as one of the finest tries ever scored in an international. It was the the rugby of my childhood . NZ its has to be said recovered pretty well and went on to dominate UK teams for many years after that. Although NZ wished to emulate the Lions backplay it would take years before the expensive play NZ is renowned for would develop. NZ back play was pretty static in the seventies but that changed due to the emergence of the Pacific Island players and example of the early eighties Wallabies with backs like the Ella brothers ,Roger Gould and Michael Lynagh were influential
@@JohnSylvanus-zu6jq Somewhat static compared to where they are now in the professional era.They had the best forward pack in the world who were incredibly gifted ball in hand and the backs were very good defensively. The game is completely different now and if you watched the older games the ball could be kicked out on the full and the ball was toed on the ground a lot. Possession was turned over constantly.Also their greatest rival SA was still mired in their Orwellian apartheid nightmare and didnt play much them much.
@@genghisthegreat2034 Yes true there were some awesome Irish players like Gibson, Slattery and McBride but the Welsh players certainly were the heartbeat of this era.
7:53 JPR (15) makes a beautiful pass, I read his autobiography and he talks about passing in two steps at full pace, nice to see that in action. Beautiful stuff from all involved
“The clue to an understanding of his achieved style lies in what he could make others do to themselves. The kicking wether spinning trajectories that rolled away or precise chips or scudding grubbers, was a long-range control, but his running, deft, poised, a fragile illusion that one wrong instant could crack, yet rarely did, was the art of the fly-half at its most testing. He was the dragonfly on the anvil of destruction. John ran in another dimension of time and space. His opponents ran into the glass walls which covered his escape routes from their bewildered clutches. He left mouths, and back rows agape”
Love this video everyone can relate to it... There a negatives in everyone's life and if your preserve learn and grow there are positives and successes that come with it.
Never forget in 1969 or 1970 as a child in a village called Resolven in the Neath valley the day Gareth Edwards came to play our local football team called Cam Gears whilst he himself I think was playing for a team called The Metal Box based in Neath. I was only about ten or eleven and me and a few friends were sat on the steps of a wooden cricket hut they used to change in, as they ran out on to the pitch. There must have been at the most about 20 or 30 local people there watching, to me and my friends at the time it was like watching a superstar close up playing a sport he was not famous for, dont remember the score or anything just remember us trying to chat to him all through the game on the touchline, it must have drove him mad!
I shared an apartment in Toronto with a New Zealander that summer of '71. He couldn't believe the results. New Zealand was facing the collapse of its economy with Britain joining the EEC, so his attitude to Brits was icy, but even this underwent a change over the course of five months
Can't quite believe what Neil Delahay said about the pro players of today not having knowledge of Barry John - How can that be? The greatest Fly of all time in my opinion and together with Gareth Edwards, a 9 10 combination that could destroy any defence and would surely be the first names on the team sheet for the greatest team of all time!
Greatest Lions team - coached by the incomparable Carwyn James. Edwards, Duckham, Gibson, Williams, Davies, Dawes and - they did not call him the King for nothing - the unapproachable Barry John. I have seen just two ball players in my life who are beyond criticism, who have brought their respective games as near to perfection as humans can achieve - Pele and Barry John.
Go easy son, Barry John was a wonderful player (rip) but he was not as good as Dan Carter. He left Our country named the King, and he was, but times move on. Barry was 72 kilos wringing wet, Carter was 95. Barry couldn't tackle, Carter nailed them Wales never beat the Abs in that era, watch NZ v Lions 2nd test, to see the goat at work
Towards the end of his life Carwyn James' personal health management was not good, including alcohol and cigarette consumption.In January 1983, 53 year-old James was on a private visit to the Netherlands and staying alone at the Hotel Krasnapolsky in Dam Square, Amsterdam. The Western Mail reported that his body was discovered in the bath of his hotel suite, having lain there for some days. Police said he had died of a heart attack and there were no suspicious circumstances
Good grief! Gatland almost broke out into an open smile or was that wind? Either way, I can do without his company during this alleged "coronovirus" of 2020! Or anytime for that matter! The man is so depressing!
"Alleged"? I am reluctant to abuse people on RU-vid but you are clearly an objectionable moron. Does it maybe take more than 12 thousand dead people to convince you that this is the real thing?
