“They’ve made their point, let’s hope it settles down,” said commentator Bill McLaren early on in this infamous Five Nations encounter. England were penalised 20 times to Wales’ 12, and the home side wins 19-12 – extending their unbeaten run in Cardiff against England to 25 years.
But it’s the aggression rather than the scoreline that has lasted longer in the memory. Former Wales flanker Clem Thomas had this to say of the match in the Observer the following day: “Altogether it was a mean, bad-tempered match which Wales never remotely looked like losing after the first 20 minutes, mainly because of the advantage presented to them by the appalling indiscipline and indiscretions of the England forwards, who throughout the game concentrated on disruption rather than construction…”
This still being the amateur era, a number of the lawbreakers on the pitch were law enforcers off it – including Phil Davies and Wade Dooley. As journalist Barry Glendinning wrote in a 2015 retrospective of the game: “With so many British policemen from the mid-80s on the field, it’s probably no great surprise the prevailing mood was one of violent menace, with scant regard for the law.”
England lock Dooley even had this to say after fracturing Davies’s jaw: “I am not proud of what I did especially as I am a policeman. But I don’t want to be labelled as a hard man. The two teams went out there psyched to the hilt and the game just exploded. There were incidents throughout with stuff going on off the ball all the time. The Welsh were not angels either.”
The Battle of Cardiff, 1987 won Round Three with 54% of the vote. You can vote for it in the final by clicking here.
