The last two games between the two nations have been won by Wales – 9-6 in Cardiff in 2018 and 29-25 in Toyko at the 2019 World Cup. Only once before, between 1969-1975, has Wakes won three in a row in a fixture that dates back to 1908.
Picking the best moment from 43 games that have been played over the past 113 years isn’t easy, but we asked one of the most experienced, respected and well-travelled of the recent rugby writers in Wales to select his favourite.
John Kennedy wrote for the South Wales Argus, South Wales Echo and Western Mail for more than 20 years and followed Wales around the globe. This is his pick of the bunch from the many games he witnessed between Wales and the Wallabies – the triumph in the 1987 World Cup third-place play-off game.
It all kicked-off with a few beers in Llanussyllt – and climaxed with whole crates of the stuff being quaffed in Te Rotorua-nui-a-Kahumatamomoe.
And the all-action filling in that frothy sandwich between events in Saundersfoot (medieval name Llanussyllt) and one of New Zealand’s North Island tourist hotspots of Rotorua was Wales’ 1987 World Cup adventure.
“Before we went to the World Cup we had a weekend in Saundersfoot,” recalled wing Adrian Hadley. “We trained on the Friday, had a game situation on the Saturday, had a few beers in the evening and then did a fun run on the Sunday. They made us all do the fun run to try to sweat the beer out of us.”
A few weeks later and Wales are celebrating in a Rotorua nightclub after beating Australia 22-21 in the third-place play-off – back rowers Paul Moriarty and Gareth Roberts crossing for tries before Hadley got the clincher in the corner and Paul Thorburn converted superbly from the touchline.
“That night we had what you might call a bit of a party in a Rotorua nightclub with more than a few beers,” added Hadley. “And, although the Australian players were also there and David Campese was his usual charming and gracious self, it was a great fun night.”
WATCH HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE GAME IN ROTORUA HERE
Richard Moriarty’s team had launched that bronze medal winning effort in a traditionally windy Wellington for their Pool B opener against Ireland, Mark Ring scoring Wales’ first World Cup try in a 13-6 win.
On to the Showgrounds Oval in Palmerston North and we have a prop adamantly claiming he has been hard done by. How? His stated age. Step forward Anthony Buchanan when selected for his belated Wales debut.
In the interview in his motel bedroom he insists he is many, many years younger than the alleged 31 years listed literally everywhere else on the planet and, with his room-mate Paul Moriarty eye-balling me across the room in the nicest possible way, well, who was I to disagree.
So “Bucks” the youngster takes the field against Tonga and happily applauds a real 25-year-old in Glen Webbe in a bruising contest that included what scrum half Robert Jones described as “the worst brawl I have ever seen on a rugby field.”
Unfortunately for Webbe it proved a tournament ending contest as the dashing wing, albeit largely while on auto-pilot, scores a hat-trick of tries in the 29-16 win only for one of the real characters of the squad to end up on a flight home with concussion.
Nevertheless, onwards and downwards to the bottom of Kiwi civilisation – otherwise known as Invercargill – and with only tumbleweed blowing along the main drag it was mooted that the boredom could be broken if the players clapped whenever they saw a car in motion.
You guessed it … the silence was deafening.
And away from that non-existent activity the beds were so short that any player over six feet (and that was a sizeable percentage of the squad) had to put his mattress on the floor to get the space to stretch out. Not to mention the freezing weather with Ring recalling “there was one time we were all sat round a fire keeping warm, it was so cold. It was right down the very bottom, at the tip of the iceberg if you like.”
The honours at Rugby Park in Wales’ 40-9 dispatch of Canada were again claimed by a wing with Ieuan Evans equalling the Welsh record of four tries in an international.
So, with the group business done and dusted it was on to the knock-outs stages via a lengthy and torturous multi-stop trip up the length of the Land of the Long White Cloud, across the Tasman and touchdown in Brisbane.
It had not been all plain sailing on the field, however, with Wales also suffering a number of injuries during the campaign and prop John Rawlins one of those summoned to the other side of the world as a replacement.
Fresh from the 32-hour flight he promptly suffered hamstring damage in the first few minutes of his first warm-up with Ieuan Evans penning in his autobiography Bread of Heaven “never in the history of modern sport can anyone have flown so far for so little.”
But for the rest it was England in the last eight with a Robert Jones inspired 16-3 win at Ballymore sending their neighbours packing on an early flight home.
That Brisbane contest was branded “the worst game seen in the inaugural competition” while the next was virtually over as a contest before it had even begun as eventual champions New Zealand proved a class apart in dismantling an injury-ravaged side 49-6.
To rub salt into Welsh wounds lock Huw Richards was sent off once he had recovered from a Wayne Shelford haymaker in a one-sided semi-final and then, when asked at the subsequent Press conference what that All Blacks master class meant for the future, Wales team manager Clive Rowlands famously replied “back to beating England every other year.”
But in the immediate future it meant back to the airport for another Tasman Sea crossing to Rotorua and there was certainly something in the air when it came down to that third-place play-off.
And it was not due to the by-product of the geotheramal activity of the renowned tourist magnet of the Bay of Plenty’s bubbling sulphur springs.
No, the whiff was that the Wallabies were not in the slightest bit interested in bronze – for them it had been gold or nothing and so – allegedly – a multitude of passports were reported either lost or expired and the message was “sorry, as much as we would love to, we cannot make it.”
But ultimately and reluctantly they did make it, albeit flanker David Codey’s involvement restricted to just a few minutes before he saw red and the Wallabies were down to 14.
In a tight five-try contest it needed that Hadley and Thorburn double act to settle it and sitting in the Rotorua Press Box alongside Western Mail columnist and former scrum half legend Terry Holmes – a man of few words but every single one a gem – I was never more delighted to shred my 84th minute “so near and so far” opening paragraph and rewrite “third in the world.”
Cue heading off to that Rotorua nightclub to celebrate and Hadley adds: “If I remember correctly, the late Steve Blackmore – bless him – ‘borrowed’ a bus to get us there ….”
But that is another story!
FOR THE RECORD . . .
The 22-21 win over Australia in 1987 was only the second ‘away’ win secured by Wales over one of the three southern hemisphere superpowers. To date there have been only four in 42 matches against Australia (15), New Zealand (13) and South Africa (14) played outside the UK.
1969: Australia 16 – 19 Wales (Sydney)
1987: Australia 21 – 22 Wales (Rotorua)
2018: Wales 22 – 20 South Africa (Washington DC)
2019: Australia 25 – 29 Wales (Tokyo)
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