An international referee once told my father that Gerald Davies, who played his last game for Wales 40 years ago this week, was more trouble than any other player he refereed. "I'd have thought he would be a model of what every player should be," said Dad, somewhat flabbergasted. "He is", said the referee. "But the trouble is that every time he gets the ball, he seems to disappear. And there's nothing worse for a referee than not knowing where the ball is."
That little exchange conveys something of the quality of Gerald Davies. He was part of probably the most brilliant group of players to ever emerge in a short time from a single social group in a small geographical area. He, Barry John, Mervyn Davies and Gareth Edwards were the sons of miners [in Merv's case a miner-turned-welder] born within a 25-mile radius of Swansea between 1945 and 1947.
All, in a reflection of post-war social change and Welsh patterns of upward mobility, trained as teachers. All were great players, capable of extraordinary feats. But of all of them, it was Gerald [each also rapidly attained the supreme Welsh status of being known solely by their forenames] who had a capacity for the uncanny, apparently suspending the usual laws of time and space. That quality was beautifully caught by cartoonist Gren's drawing of a snowbound National Stadium with a strange, disconnected pattern of footsteps in one section, captioned 'Gerald been out for a run, has he?'. It was clearly appreciated by its subject, who included it in the illustrations for his autobiography, and at least one other book.
If that gives the impression of some wild, untutored genius, it is misleading. Genius maybe, but anything but untutored. His Cambridge degree in literature, taken on top the famed teaching course at Loughborough, places him alongside Dr JPR Williams and Aberystwyth science graduate John Dawes as the most educated Welsh star of the 1970s golden age.
Education polished a sharp and inquiring mind. Gareth Williams and Dai Smith record in Fields of Praise, whose ranking as the finest work on the game's history is based not only on first-class research but acutely-observed evocations of the most important players, that "He was, perhaps, more than any Welsh international since 1945, deeply contemplative about his reasons for playing rugby far beyond thinking about the technicalities of his own game."
That thinking gave him a hinterland which twice led to his stepping off the treadmill that top-class rugby was becoming. He missed the 1970 Five Nations because he feared that over-concentration on rugby meant neglecting the wider experience of being a Cambridge student, and in 1974 declined to tour South Africa with the Lions. One element in that was his revulsion at apartheid, but it was at least as much his sense of obligation to the school where he had just started teaching.
His was a career marked by almost endless success. While his earliest senior club rugby was with Llanelli, the bulk was spent first with the all-conquering London Welsh teams captained by Dawes, then at Cardiff, where he was unprecedentedly voted captain for four consecutive seasons, beating Edwards in the election for their centenary year.
He retired as Wales's most-capped three-quarter with 46 appearances and, jointly with Edwards, its leading scorer with 20 tries. Add in the three tries he scored in the Lions victory over New Zealand in 1971, statistically his peak year with eight tries in eight Tests, and he finished with 23, at the time only one behind Scottish giant Ian Smith as the highest international scorer of all time.
He played in great teams, and made them still greater, appearing in Wales teams who won three Grand Slams, five Triple Crowns and five outright championships plus two shared, and of course those never-to-be-forgotten Lions.
His Wales career which had a degree of circularity, starting and finishing against Australia, at Cardiff in 1966 and Sydney in 1978. It was not the most auspicious of starts, though. A Wales team in which Barry John was also making his debut went down 14-11 in what was regarded at the time as their first ever loss to Australia [The 1927 victory by the Waratahs has since been upgraded to full Australian Test status]. Wales lost his first three Five Nations games as well, in 1967, and teammate John Taylor has since speculated what might have happened to what eventually proved one of the greatest Welsh generations had a whitewash not been averted in Keith Jarrett's astonishing debut against England at the end of that season.
Gerald scored his first two tries for Wales in that match from centre, his position until moved to the wing by Clive Rowlands during the 1969 tour of New Zealand. Rowlands argued that it would enable him to 'express his genius more fully', but Gerald, who had begun as a schoolboy half-back, perceived another trend and was not convinced, 'genius or not, the next step was touch-judge'.
But Rowlands was right, foreseeing that at 5ft8in and 11 stone he might, although there was never anything wrong with his defence, get lost - rather as David Richards would in the next generation -- amid the heavy crash-ball traffic that increasingly crowded midfields. Those tactics would on occasion leave him slightly underused on the wing, but as Williams and Smith wrote, the switch gave him 'that inch of extra space he needed to deploy his incomparable skills'. They rated him, ahead of such immortals as Ken Jones and Willie Llewellyn, as Wales's finest ever wing, a verdict which stands today against the passage of time and the subsequent challenges of Ieuan Evans and Shane Williams. Wales had been captained to their 1978 Grand Slam by Phil Bennett, whom with Edwards retired before the summer tour of Australia. Any team in history would have missed the pair but the rest of the team who won the Grand Slam -- JPR Williams at full-back, Gerald and JJ Williams on the wing, Steve Fenwick and Ray Gravell at centre, the Pontypool front-row, Geoff Wheel and Allan Martin at lock and a back row made up by Cobner, Derek Quinnell and Jeff Squire -- was available, and toured.
Australia were not yet the force they have since become. However, they did have a nucleus of high competence. Players like back rowers Mark Loane and Greg Cornelsen, goal-kicking outside-half Paul McLean and a smart young centre called Andrew Slack.
England had returned from their 1975 trip Down Under unhappy, in a time before neutral referees became the rule about Australian officials. Wales had been unhappy about Bob Burnett's handling of the Queensland match and objected to his appointment for the test. Appointments were supposed to be mutually agreed, but the Australians were adamant and, as John Taylor recalls in 'Decade of the Dragon' 'Wales's worst fears were upheld as they were again penalised incessantly'. Fenwick was to say afterwards that 'I'd heard of Australian Rules Football, but I thought it was a totally different game.'
Australia led 9-4 at half-time, three McLean penalties to Gerald's 19th try [in 1978 worth four points] for Wales, collecting a finely-placed diagonal kick from Gareth Davies to score in the corner. Debutant Brynmor Williams cut the deficit a single point with another try 15 minutes after the break.
But as Taylor reported, Wales had to admit that Australia were playing well, and a finely-taken try by wing Phil Crowe, converted by McLean, sealed a 15-8 victory which was 'as much a shock' as their 1966 win.
The Welsh mood was not improved over the subsequent week. They lost 21-20 to Capital Territory, not then remotely what they have since become, and the entire test back row went down with injury. There was no problem with two of the replacements. Cardiff flanker Stuart Lane had won his first cap as a replacement in Sydney and Newbridge No. 8 Clive Davis had plenty of admirers. But with only 25 men in the tour party, they were the only reserve back-rowers. Somebody would have to fill in, which is how JPR Williams, already a legend at full-back with 46 caps for Wales, came to win his 47th as a back-rower.
Cobner had played his last game for Wales, and the captaincy passed to Gerald, whose first few minutes as leader offered a reminder of one of the other English complaints from 1975 -- the violence of Australian prop Steve Finnane, a barrister whose on-field punching ability had reputedly once led a client to offer him work as a mob enforcer.
Not the strongest scrummager in the world, he was matched with Graham Price, who may have been, and was reported at the first scrum to have promised Finnane a long afternoon. Finnane took immediate precautions against this with a punch which broke Price's jaw in two places. Interviewed many years later he regretted the injury, but not the punch.
Alun Donovan, the Swansea centre deputising at full-back, was injured late in the half and replaced by Newport wing Gareth Evans, with JPR reverting to full-back. Two replacements were then the maximum, so when Evans' cheekbone was broken within minutes by a high tackle and JJ Williams twisted his ankle badly, both had to carry on.
A forward short, and with their two passengers covering one wing, Wales did well to make a match of it, eventually going down 19-17 after a frantic finish. McLean was awarded a drop-goal Wales were convinced had gone under the bar, and Gerald scored his 20th and last try for his country, but Gareth Davies was unable to land the conversion which would have given them a draw.
It was not then clear, not least to himself, that this was the end. He had after all been elected Cardiff captain for a fourth consecutive year, and had intended to return. But, Taylor reported 'Suddenly the zest for the game had gone. That's how it happens', and he announced his retirement. Some Cardiff members felt let down, but Gerald argued that he would not do the club justice by going through the motions, even though, as Taylor points out 'Doing that Gerald would still have been better than most'.
He has since filled many roles. He was a judicious and thoughtful writer on the game for the Times, author of the best autobiography by any of the Golden Age stars. The self-written volume was happily devoid of the usual tropes, but includes a chapter on his native Llansaint which is by any standards a fine evocation of childhood and a brilliant description of a Wales matchday during Rowlands' time as coach. He filled the thankless role on the committee of the Welsh Rugby Union and managed the 2009 Lions in South African. He became chairman of HTV Wales and president of the Welsh Youth Council, who simply wanted his name on their notepaper and instead for six years got an active and highly committed figurehead.
And in his end for Wales was another's beginning. Wales's scrum-half at Sydney was Terry Holmes. He had displaced Williams on form and at Sydney showed that he would be tough to move, scoring one of the hard-driving short-range tries were to become a trademark.
It was tough on Williams, who became a sort of rugby Anthony Eden, a long period as heir apparent followed by only a short time in the role for which he seemed a natural. It was three years before he played for Wales again, adding two caps for a final total of three before Holmes resumed his role as Wales's defining player in the first half of the 1980s. But Holmes's career, before 'going North' to Bradford North and giving way in turn to Robert Jones, represented something fundamental in rugby, and life. Even the greatest careers must end, but there is always something and someone to follow them.