Читать книгу Phil Bennett: The Autobiography - Phil Bennett - Страница 9

Some time after Kevin Keegan had quit as England soccer manager in 2000, most of the London-based newspapers were having trouble speculating as to who his successor might be. No sooner were they building up the credentials of some particular candidate than the poor bloke would have a panic attack and declare he had no interest in the job. The popular opinion seemed to be that it just wasn’t worth the hassle, the aggravation, the heart failure and the inevitable damning criticism when things went wrong. It was, most of the papers decided, not something any sane person would accept and they dubbed it, ‘The Impossible Job’.

Then along came this very academic-looking Swedish man called Sven-Goran Eriksson who not only wanted the job but also seemed to thrive in it. Against the odds, he took England to the World Cup Finals and became a national hero. Not even defeat to Brazil in the quarter-finals appears to have dented his reputation.

No, for a real ‘mission impossible’ try coaching the Welsh rugby team. Graham Henry did it for a while and for a time he became a bigger national hero in Wales than even Sven was in England after England had beaten Germany 5–1. Like his footballing counterpart, Henry took his team to the quarterfinals of the World Cup; but that was when the rot set in. Results nose-dived and so did Henry’s reputation. In the end he quit, joining a long line of former Welsh coaches who shone brightly, but briefly, and then hit the ground with a bump.

The comparison with English football is a useful one. Both Welsh rugby and English soccer have a rich history always looming large and threateningly over whoever happens to be in charge. The sports are national obsessions – except when there is any planning for the future to be done – and the respective coaches are forever carrying around unrealistic public expectations, fuelled by an intense and demanding media. The spotlight is very bright and not everyone can cope with the glare. For a time, Henry seemed to revel in it. But in the end, even he was burnt.

Just like the job of England soccer manager, the profile of the Welsh rugby coach has mushroomed over the years. Walter Winterbottom could have gone into most pubs in England in the sixties and very few people would have recognised him. Even Sir Alf Ramsey managed to continue to live a very private and humble existence after England had won the World Cup in 1966.

It was the same in Welsh rugby. David Nash was the first Welsh rugby coach in 1967 and his profile was even more modest than his record of one victory in five matches. Wales then entered the golden years of Grand Slams and Triple Crowns but most fans would have been hard-pressed to name the coach, never mind recognise him in the street. Gareth Edwards, Barry John, JPR and Gerald Davies were the names on everybody’s lips but Clive Rowlands and John Dawes were very much men who stayed in the shadows even though they had both been very prominent players themselves. Part of the reason was the structure of what passed for management of the national team. In those days the coach did not pick the side. That was left to a gang of selectors, in Wales the so-called Big Five. These were the men with the power. The coach was there merely to train the players who were given to him and offer them tactical advice and a passionate pre-match speech.

I first got into the Welsh squad in 1968, as understudy to Barry, when David Nash was in charge. David was a decent chap, a quiet man, but a thinker. He deserved a longer crack at the job but no one even knew in those days whether or not coaching was going to be accepted. A school of thought still existed then that viewed coaches as rather eccentric meddlers who should really leave things to the captain and the committee.

Clive Rowlands changed all that. He did the job for six seasons and lost just seven matches. By the time he stepped down in 1974, Wales were leading the way on the field and the coaching revolution was attracting many admirers off it.

Clive was the complete opposite of David Nash. He was loud and ebullient, with a cocky self-confidence and a fiercely proud view of what Wales and Welsh rugby should be all about. I was fortunate in that I knew Clive because our playing careers had crossed during his final days. I knew what a magnificent motivator he was and what effect those powers might have on me. I’d been part of the squad for a West Wales side against the touring New Zealanders in 1967 when Clive was coach. He was presented with a mixed bunch of young kids and old-timers who were all considered not good enough for the Welsh squad. But he used that fact as his trump card when it came to motivation and a fired-up West Wales came very close to beating the mighty All Blacks.

A year later I toured Argentina under Clive with a squad that had been stripped of its Lions players. We were raw and inexperienced but we drew the Test series 1–1 and it was more valuable know-how stored away in the bank for Clive. He was young enough still to have a strong connection with the players, but he was also very ambitious in this new field of coaching and that gave him a little distance from those who were playing under him.

As a player Clive would spend entire matches talking to referees, winding up opponents, doing anything to gain the initiative. He carried that shrewdness into his coaching career, too. He was crafty. He knew how to get the best out of players. He didn’t have the analytical brain of Carwyn James but he recognised what made most players tick and usually found a way of winding them up. Sometimes it wasn’t subtle, but it was generally successful.

A typical Clive Rowlands team talk before a Wales international match would go like this. There were no team rooms provided in the hotels in those days, so the whole squad would have to pile into the captain’s own bedroom. There would be players sitting on the bed, on the dressing table, on the floor, even perched on the wardrobe – anywhere they could find a seat in a small hotel room. It would be stuffy and overwhelming. Wearing his Wales tie and pullover, Clive would pace the room, fag in hand, ranting and raving. He would demand you performed not just for yourself, but for your father, your mother, your long-lost aunt, the miners, the steelworkers, the teachers, the schoolchildren – in effect, the whole Welsh nation. You were their representatives and you owed it to them to deliver. By the end of this sermon, some boys would be head-butting the walls and others would be crying their eyes out. Then he would briefly mention one or two dangermen in the opposition before ending the whole performance by telling everyone that we were the best team in the world.

The players would then squeeze out of the room and head for the ground. Anyone caught chatting, or worse still smiling, would suffer Clive’s wrath. It was a very Welsh, very emotional build-up and it produced a very emotional display on the field. It flowed out of Clive. Then it flowed out of the players during the match.

The problem, of course, was that players could only work themselves into this kind of frenzy so many times. After a while the words become just that … words. Both Gareth and Barry became a little bored by all the nationalistic stuff and I’d notice they would be yawning or looking at their watch while other players, perhaps less secure of their places in the team, would be lapping it up.

But Top Cat, as Clive came to be known, was a remarkable coach with a fabulous record of success. He learned from his early experiences, especially the tour to New Zealand in 1969 where Wales travelled with confidence but came back on the wrong end of two heavy Test defeats. Clive noted what needed to be done and then put it into practice.

On an emotional level, Clive always made his players aware of the responsibilities they carried and nine times out of ten they responded. His training sessions could be great fun – full of banter and stirring up the friendly rivalries within the squad. Everything Clive did was on a grand scale and the fans who watched us train were encouraged to feel very much part of the group.

Clive had a good rapport with the players as individuals, too. He would take me aside for a chat, perhaps because he felt I was drifting too far across the field. But rather than criticise players, he would make subtle suggestions to make you feel that it was in your hands. When you made the changes he was seeking he would be delighted and offer plenty of praise.

It was a time of plenty on the field, too, and Clive will always deserve huge credit for his role in helping shape the early successes of the seventies. But after six years in charge, which included a couple of Triple Crowns and a Grand Slam, it was time for a change. Clive made way for John Dawes, but it was still the selectors who called the shots. John was a very different character to Clive, more sombre and measured. He was already a hero for captaining the 1971 Lions to a glorious triumph in New Zealand and his step up into coaching was a natural one. He slipped into the role quite effortlessly, but there was still no huge public interest in the coach. The attention was still very much on the players. That was probably a blessing, as John liked the quiet life.

The only other realistic choice to take over from Clive would have been Carwyn James, my coach at Llanelli, who had masterminded that 1971 Lions success. But Carwyn was too much of a maverick, too outspoken for the conservative tastes within the WRU. Any hopes Carwyn had of getting the job probably disappeared when he spoke before a large audience at Llanelli’s centenary dinner in 1972. A homage to his own club turned into a scathing attack on the Union and the men who ran it. The home truths hit home but rather than concede that Carwyn was right the Union closed ranks and put a black mark against his name. Carwyn could see that any Welsh coach should have the power and authority to do things his own way and pick who he wanted to pick. This was viewed as an all-out attack on the WRU and any possibility that the greatest coach of his generation might have had the top job probably went down the plughole that evening.

We will never know what Carwyn, possessor of the sharpest rugby brain I ever came across, might have done had he become national coach. He would have been hard pressed to have matched the record of Dawesy, who won 75 per cent of his matches in charge between 1974 and 1979, but I think Carwyn would have been there or thereabouts. One thing would have been certain, though. Carwyn would have demanded a role in shaping the next generation of Welsh rugby players, not merely the ones under his direct influence. He would have possessed the vision to see past the next game and to shape the future development of the sport in Wales. He would have seen the lean times coming long before anyone else and taken the decisive and necessary steps to put things right. Sadly, he was never given the opportunity. That Carwyn was denied any influence at that level is one of the great tragedies of Welsh rugby.

Having captained the Lions under James, at least John Dawes had learnt well from the master and he was able to put much of that sound knowledge into practice. Dawesy was quieter than Carwyn. There was no grand oratory, none of the lyrical coaxing that characterised Carwyn’s dressing-room patter. John was more into sound common sense, although he had a very secure grasp of tactics and he knew how to persuade players to mix their flair with pragmatism.

I had great respect for John from our own playing days together. My own career with Wales was just starting to get off the ground while John’s was finishing, and I benefited greatly from his experience. In 1970 I came into the side for a match against France in Cardiff after Barry John had dropped out through injury. It was a good French side, with a lot of pace behind, while our own back line had been badly hit by injuries and looked rather slow by comparison. John, as captain, turned to me in the dressing room just before we ran out and said, ‘Phil, I don’t want to see you pass the ball today. Just kick for position and let our forwards do the rest.’ I’d never been ordered to play like that before, but I did as I was told. It wasn’t much of a match but they were exactly the right tactics in the wet weather and we won 11–6.

That advice sticks in my mind because it went against John’s natural inclinations. He had been brought up on good football with London Welsh and he always wanted to put skill, flair and attacking intent at the top of his list of priorities. Luckily for him, and for the rest of the Welsh nation, he was to have a team well blessed to win games in that style for the five years he spent as Wales coach. But the Welsh team of that time never chucked the ball about for the sake of it. We got the basics right and did the groundwork before we constructed anything fancy.

John was fortunate in having his coaching underpinned by the influence of Ray Williams. Ray was responsible for the development of coaches as a coaching organiser and did the job superbly. He was ahead of his time, introducing the weekend sessions for the national squad and formulating drills and skills programmes which the rest of the world came to learn from. Though they seem long ago now, those were the days when the Aussies came over to Wales to learn the latest techniques and ideas on how to coach rugby. John took those training days at weekends, but it was Ray whose vision had brought about their introduction.

Looking back, those Sunday sessions seem so simple and straightforward compared to later years. We would try to run off the aches and pains of the previous day’s game and go through the rudiments of a couple of very uncomplicated moves. When JPR Williams caught the ball and counterattacked, the plan would always be for him to run towards the nearest touchline. Either Gerald Davies or JJ Williams would then offer themselves on the switch and either take the pass or act as a decoy. It wasn’t rocket science but it depended on good players making good decisions out on the field. John was our guide. He had a vision for the way he wanted us to play, but this was only a framework. It was up to the players to provide all the detail. We were constructing something and John was the one who surveyed the land, suggested the best materials and provided the boundaries. But the style, the shape, and especially the fine detail was left to the players. For me, that is what rugby is still all about. When I heard of Graham Henry’s infamous ‘pod system’ with the Lions in 2001, I could hardly believe it. Martin Johnson admitted after the tour he found it difficult to know whether or not he should be at a ruck or hanging back waiting for the next one. It wasn’t that he couldn’t decide; it was that he couldn’t remember. This was rugby by numbers, by rote instead of thought or expression. If it could really be played like Henry seemed to suggest then coaches and players could work it all out with the opposition beforehand and no one would need to set foot on the pitch.

On Sunday evening, we would break up and not reassemble until the Thursday for another hour-long training session. The players would be allowed to return home again that evening, following which we would meet up at The Angel Hotel in Cardiff on Friday afternoon and head for the cinema. We would get back at about 11pm, have a quick chat, and then go to bed. In the morning, there would be a team meeting after breakfast. John was fanatical about rugby, but he was wise enough not to let it show. Team meetings would normally begin with a chat about his beloved Manchester United before we talked rugby and if there were any small problems or grievances on the part of the players then John would act quickly to sort them out. He was always a players’ man.

Ours was a simple, basic, commonsense rugby. Dawesy approved because he shared that philosophy and knew that we had the players to get it right. For the most part the Wales coach at this time was exerting a greater influence over the Big Five when it came to selecting the team, but so many other aspects were still extremely amateurish. When I was dropped by Wales for the game against England in 1975, I learnt the news in a phone call from Peter Jackson of the Daily Mail. Jacko was on the ball, just as he still is these days, but I doubt that he’ll be the one telling Jonny Wilkinson that he’s dropped when the time comes. Things are done far more professionally these days, in that respect at least. I learnt the news from Peter because none of the selectors had the courage to call me. I never even knew why I’d been left out of the squad, but I suspect it had something to do with my decision to play a club game for Llanelli within days of pulling out of a Wales match against Australia because of injury. The fact that I had recovered sufficiently didn’t matter. Even so, I could have handled being dropped if the selectors had told me they were doing it. But to be told by a press man left a nasty taste in my mouth. Many things in rugby have changed for the worse in the past quarter of a century, but at least coaches have recognised their responsibilities when it comes to selection. When Woodward axes Wilkinson, or Steve Hansen tells Stephen Jones or Neil Jenkins they are being edged out, then at least those players can expect to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

It hurt being dropped, but as Pat and I had suffered the death of our first child only a year previously I was hardly going to lose perspective. As things turned out I was soon back in the side because John Bevan dislocated his shoulder playing against Scotland. My relationship with John Dawes had not suffered from my non-selection. I accepted the decision, if not the manner in which I learnt about it. In fact, within two seasons I had been made Wales captain after the magnificent career of Mervyn Davies was brought to a shockingly premature halt by a brain haemorrhage.

I thought Gareth Edwards would have become captain, but John and his selectors felt Gareth suffered as a player when he carried the responsibility of leadership. I can’t say I shared their view. Neither did Gareth and he still can’t see it to this day. Still, I became captain and will always be grateful to John Dawes. Our relationship survived me being dropped and we both thrived. We won the 1977 Triple Crown – the second of four in a row – and at the end of that season we went off with the Lions to New Zealand together. I was captain. John was coach. We lost the series but that should not detract in any way from John’s coaching achievements. He was a deep thinker about the game, a high achiever, but capable of celebrating Grand Slams with a handshake and pat on the back rather than anything more openly emotional. He will surely go down in history as one of the best coaches, and certainly the most successful, the country has ever known.

If Clive Rowlands had been a tough act to follow, then coming in to the job after Clive and John Dawes in succession made things extremely difficult. Add in the vital factor of a team that was starting to break up, and this is truly the point where the job did indeed start to become impossible. Wales won another Triple Crown in 1979, just for good measure, and then John stood down. He left behind a team that needed to be rebuilt with careful nurturing, but he also left behind public expectations that were enormous and that demanded instant satisfaction. What a mix. The man left holding the restless baby was John Lloyd.

The 1970s had brought three Grand Slams and five Triple Crowns. In the 11 seasons stretching from 1969 to 1979 Wales either won the Five Nations championship or finished runners-up. Looking back, it was an amazing period of consistent success. Now came 1980 – a new decade, a new Welsh team, but the same level of expectancy. John Lloyd had been a very solid prop with Bridgend, but even his shoulders were not broad enough to carry such hopes and responsibility. Whoever eventually takes over from Alex Ferguson at Manchester United will quickly know the feeling. It wasn’t that Wales suddenly became a bad side overnight; they didn’t. It was just that winning only 50 per cent of Tests and losing to teams Wales had previously brushed aside was an unpalatable change of diet for supporters used to heaven’s bread. The big names had gone and the difference they made could be seen clearly. Tight matches now started to go in the opposition’s favour rather than to Wales and the coach began to take hostile criticism in the media, which had also grown accustomed to reporting success. John Lloyd spent two seasons in charge as Wales coach, and although he had some bright ideas he was replaced in 1982 by John Bevan and his assistant Terry Cobner.

Bevan and Cobner were a good mix. John, who sadly died in 1986 after an illness, had coached Aberavon, while Terry had been virtually a player-coach during his time with Pontypool. Both had played for Wales during the golden era of the seventies, both had toured with the Lions, and both knew what they were expected to live up to. They worked hard, were respected and shrewd in their handling of players and began to lay the foundations for what proved a brief period of recovery for Wales at the end of the 1980s. But Cobs and John, like John Lloyd before them, were operating in the toughest times for a Wales coach. They had so much to live up to and yet a quickly diminishing supply of talent from which to choose. Without anyone in the senior circles of the game in Wales able to identify a real shift in power, rather than just a blip, the cards were stacked against all three of them.

If someone had said to me in 1970 that Tony Gray would one day be a Wales coach then I would have thought they were either mad or had been drinking. Tony was a guy who I had toured Argentina with. He was a quiet, diffident North Walian who didn’t seem to have the size of personality to take on such a big job. But, helped by Derek Quinnell, a man everyone respected, Tony became Wales coach in 1985. In some ways they were an unusual pair. Derek had no first-class coaching experience, while Tony had cut his teeth outside of Wales with London Welsh. Neither, then, were at the top of the coaching tree but they went about their job with a quiet determination to get things back on track – and for a while they managed it.

I had a lot of time for Tony Gray. He recognised good players and got them to express themselves and play somewhere towards their potential. He had the vision and bravery to make bold selection decisions – such as picking two other fly-halves, Mark Ring and Bleddyn Bowen, alongside Jonathan Davies in 1988 when Wales won at Twickenham. With a strong pack and the finishing power of Ieuan Evans and Adrian Hadley outside the flair of the three fly-halves, the 1988 side was a strong one. It deserved the Triple Crown success and came close to a Grand Slam. They were a very good team and I think they would have given any of the sides from the seventies a real run for their money.

I can remember being in the BBC Wales TV studios a few days before Wales played France in the final game of the 1988 championship. A Grand Slam beckoned but I felt Wales had looked tired against Ireland while France were a strong-looking side who had caught my eye despite losing to Scotland. I felt very guilty tipping France to win before the match and my fellow studio guests, Ray Gravell and Allan Martin, were appalled at my lack of belief. Unfortunately, I was proved right. But that defeat was a narrow one, just 10–9, and there was real, hard evidence that Gray and Quinnell were making progress. Unfortunately, they then had to tour New Zealand in the summer of 1988 and they happened to run into one of the finest and most ruthless All Black sides ever produced. Wales lost the first Test 52–3 and the second 54–9. All of the European teams would have gone the same way. This was the period when the gap between northern and southern hemisphere rugby suddenly widened to a gulf.

Of course, instead of realising that, the WRU pushed the panic button. It was completely unfair and ridiculous but the decision was made to sack both Tony and Derek. Everyone in Wales was shocked by the scorelines, but not half as shocked as seeing the coaches dismissed in the same year as they had won the Triple Crown. Talk about overreaction! Wales had lost heavily, but to the best team in the world. Real progress had been made in the two years leading into that Triple Crown, but it counted for nothing in the minds of the incompetents on the WRU.

What was really needed was a thorough examination of why the New Zealand players were so much better than our own. What had they done to move so far ahead? But that might have pointed a few too many fingers at those running the game, so they pointed a loaded shotgun at the coaches, instead. Clive Rowlands had been given a similar bloody nose by the All Blacks in 1969, but Clive was given time to get things right and he did it. Gray and Quinnell were not given that time – despite their successes – they were just given the boot.

Jonathan Davies pleaded the case for sticking with Tony and Derek. He urged the Union to consult the players who were eager to become more professional, more organised and more skilled. Bleddyn Bowen said the same thing. But the WRU ignored Jonathan. They wouldn’t even let him address them on the subject at their own AGM. Disillusioned and demoralised by it all, Jonathan left for rugby league in the autumn of 1988. Others followed his path and Welsh rugby went from flying high with a Triple Crown into a destructive tailspin.

I felt very sorry for Tony and Derek. It was such a waste of their talent. It was also confirmation that the WRU were now reacting to defeat like the very worst kinds of soccer club chairmen. There were huge, fundamental problems with Welsh rugby in the 1980s, but the reaction to defeat now involved the forming of a lynch mob to go after the national coach, even though merely being paid to play and coach was still seven years away.

John Ryan succeeded Tony Gray in the autumn of 1988 and the bottom line for John is that he didn’t have a hope in hell. This was now the time of the mass exodus to rugby league and Ryan had to try to make silk purses from cauliflower ears. His record of just two victories in his nine matches in charge shows he didn’t make many purses.

John had not entered the job on the back of a long playing career with Wales or a sparkling record as a club coach. He was a decent man, but out of his depth when it came to rescuing Wales from the tidal wave of destructive neglect that was now starting to gather a rapid momentum. Instead of treading on solid ground established by steady progress under Tony Gray, poor old John was up to his knees in a mess that he had no chance of sorting out. Somehow, Wales managed to narrowly beat England in 1989 but by the following year the pattern of the next decade was being firmly established. Wales were well-beaten 34–6 at Twickenham and England scored four tries to one. These days no one would bat an eyelid, but back then this was viewed as a national humiliation of epic proportions and there were few dissenters when Ryan decided to stand down. I rarely get to attend post-match press conferences, as they normally take place when I am still on air for Radio Wales, but that day’s was late starting and I shuffled into the back of a crowded room. I’ll never forget John Ryan’s face that afternoon. He looked wretched – a broken man. The responsibility was obviously too much for him and when the hacks started their grilling he seemed to melt away in his own misery. At one point I felt he was on the verge of tears. Had his captain, Robert Jones, not done well in deflecting some of the blame away from the coach then John could have suffered even more torment. It was a sad, sad sight. The nature of the Welsh job was changing because the identity of the man in charge was so much stronger than it had been before. John’s misfortune was to walk into this brighter spotlight at a time when the players in Wales were simply not up to it, and so all that focus was thrust upon failings rather than success. John wasn’t cut out for such intense scrutiny and I was hardly surprised when he threw in the towel.

The WRU needed a saviour, primarily to save their own disintegrating reputation, and they looked around for suitable candidates. The outstanding team in Wales at that time, and arguably in the whole of Britain, was Neath. So Ron Waldron, their respected coach, who had a slightly maverick reputation, was asked to step into the breach and he accepted. Ron did what anyone else in his position would have done; he relied on those he felt he could trust. In his case it was players he knew well at Neath. Suddenly, the team was half-full of Neath players, but still half-cocked when it came to shooting down anyone that mattered.

Wales lost at home to Scotland and then away to Ireland. Following the defeats to France and England, which had triggered Ryan’s resignation, it meant Wales suffered their first ever championship whitewash. I can remember bumping into Ron that evening in Lansdowne Road. He was forlorn. ‘It will always stick with me,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘The man who led Wales to a whitewash.’ It was a harsh self-judgement, considering he had only been in charge for half the tournament, but things weren’t about to get much better. In fact, they simply got a whole lot worse.

Wales lost three of their 1991 championship matches as well and drew the other, against Ireland. It meant that for the third season in a row we were left holding the wooden spoon – a staggering reversal of the fortunes of the past.

Wales went on to tour Australia that summer and suffered record defeats, conceding 63 points in the Test and 71 points in a provincial match. The defeat to the Aussies was the cue for a fight to break out among the Welsh players attending the official post-match dinner.

Wales left Australia with their reputation in tatters, their dignity stripped away and poor old Ron nursing a heart complaint that soon forced him to step down. Much of the personal bitterness that had been directed Ron’s way could hardly have improved his health. It’s true he gave away cheap caps to certain Neath players who were of dubious international quality, but that was not the real reason why Wales were declining. If Wales had been winning, no one would have noticed. Nobody complained that there were too many players from London Welsh during the 1970s. Ron was a good coach. He had proved that by shaping Neath into a very formidable team and bringing through players the rugby league clubs were eager to snap up. His emphasis on physical fitness may have been overdone but he was on the right lines, as other national coaches were to discover. It was the situation Ron found himself in that was all wrong. Chucked in at the deepest of ends it was little wonder that the waves engulfed him. The 1988 Triple Crown had been firm evidence of a revival in Welsh rugby, but the WRU pulled the rug away with their clumsy sackings, and confidence ebbed away from players, coaches and everyone else involved for the next three years.

I have no doubts that Ron’s health problems were related to the stress of the job. It had become impossible to deliver success and impossible to live with the consequences of failure. By the end, I was glad to see Ron get out. Once your health and family life are put at risk then no job is worth it.

With Ron gone, there was more panic among the general committee of the WRU. I can recall a lot of daft names were being muttered by people who should have known better, but someone with a bit of vision and common sense must have won the day because the Union wisely asked Alan Davies, the Welsh-born Nottingham coach, to take charge on a temporary basis for the 1991 World Cup. His temporary stint became permanent and he eventually coached Wales right through to 1995. You might have thought that would have included the World Cup of that year, but thanks to their own methods of madness the WRU sacked Alan just a few weeks before the tournament – creating exactly the same situation before that World Cup as when he had come in four years before. Most countries change their coach a month after a World Cup, but Wales like to be different.

Alan was different. He was a bit eccentric although I have to say I didn’t really take to his bow ties and braces. Neither did most of Wales. He had a plummy English accent and the red bow ties just made him look even more of an outsider. But he was a very sound coach and he should always be acknowledged for applying a brake to halt the speed at which Wales were careering downhill.

Alan took over at a terrible time following that shameful trip to Australia and although he brought some stability to the squad the 1991 World Cup was still a complete disaster. Wales lost to Western Samoa long before anyone took them seriously – the Samoans, of course, would later leave their mark on others – and although we scraped past Argentina we were thrashed by Australia, again, and found ourselves turfed out with the rest of the also-rans before the knockout stages. Once again, we were in desperate straits.

The results gradually began to improve, though, and even if Wales were still losing too often for most people’s liking, Alan at least lifted the spirit and confidence within the squad. It wasn’t a time of great achievements, but throughout 1992 and 1993 the team began to regain a bit of self-respect. We were no longer quite the laughing stock we had been in the summer of 1991. One of Alan’s best decisions was to take on Gareth Jenkins of Llanelli as his assistant and I still firmly believe the time will come when Gareth will gain another crack at Test rugby. He and Mike Ruddock have clearly been the best Welsh coaches at club level over the past decade.

Although Alan and Gareth stopped the rot, they found it hard to convince the public that they were entirely on the right lines. A blame game had set in, fostered by a sense of parochialism that had spun out of control. I was used to petty village jealousies, but even though the rest of the world had moved on Welsh supporters appeared trapped by their own narrow-mindedness. Just as Ron Waldron was continually castigated for picking too many Neath players, so Alan found himself sniped at by those who felt he was leaning too far towards Llanelli, Gareth’s club. When Wales played against France in Paris in 1993, there were eight Llanelli players in the side. The scoreline, 26–10, was certainly no disgrace but there was a lot of flak directed towards Alan by the anti-Llanelli brigade. It all became too personal and I found it ridiculous. Among the most unpleasant and unappealing attributes of some Welsh supporters is their willingness to heap blame on some small band of folk for the failings of a nation.

The level of bitterness shocked me the night Wales lost at home to Canada in 1993 a few months after the French defeat. It was certainly a humiliating loss, our first ever against the Canadians, but there was a hostility towards Alan that was unjustified. Certain people in the game, including former Welsh internationals, questioned Alan’s credentials simply because he hadn’t played for Wales. I’d never felt that was a necessity for the job. After all, Carwyn James only played twice for Wales and yet he was the greatest coach I ever came across. In my mind it didn’t matter. It was never a factor for me when Graham Henry became Wales coach and it didn’t matter with regard to Alan.

As it turned out, Alan had the best possible answer to his critics: Wales won the 1994 Five Nations championship, the last occasion Wales have won the tournament. They beat Scotland, Ireland and France and lost a respectable match to England at Twickenham when they were going for a Grand Slam and Triple Crown. The team was well organised, efficient, difficult to unsettle and occasionally unpredictable – much like the coach. But within a year Wales were whitewashed in the championship just a few weeks before the 1995 World Cup. Alan, Gareth and Bob Norster, the team manager, were all forced out and the Australian Alex Evans was asked to take Wales to the tournament with just a few weeks to prepare and pick a squad. Deep down he probably knew he was on a hiding to nothing, but coaching at international level must have an appeal that temporarily blinds people to the blindingly obvious.

Alan Davies won 18 out of 36 matches in charge. Not a bad return when you consider the situation in which he found himself when asked to take over the reins. He introduced a level of professional back-up for players that hadn’t been seen before and through careful attention to detail he transformed the team from an organisational shambles in 1991 to a team that lost only 15–8 to England at Twickenham when chasing that Grand Slam. If Nigel Walker had been given a few more passes earlier on in that match, then who knows what might have happened. But the problems of Welsh rugby, the real structural and especially the administrative weaknesses, couldn’t be disguised by simply tightening up the national side’s defence. The foundations of the game were still unstable and one grisly night in Johannesburg the roof fell in when a poor Irish team beat Wales to knock us out of the 1995 World Cup, once again before the knockout stages had even begun. Alex Evans was at the helm, a caretaker who found that not enough care had been taken on innumerable areas of the sport.

Typically, Alex was slated for packing the Wales team with too many Cardiff players, the club he had enjoyed great success with. It’s become a knee-jerk reaction in Wales, even though it makes about as much sense as a car driver blaming engine problems on where his passengers are from.

Alex sounded off with a few home truths about the state of Welsh rugby, and was rewarded not with a full-time job offer but with the suggestion it was time he went home to Australia. He left in the winter of 1995, the tenth man to try the impossible job and the owner of the briefest record in it – just four games, which included only one victory. What has been striking about all the appointments is the complete lack of consistency and continuity. No coach was ever brought through the system. There hasn’t been a system – just a succession of stabs in the dark, and it’s been pretty dark for much of the time since the end of the 1970s. Two World Cups – 1991 and 1995 – were completely wasted because of this policy of chop and change and a pitiful lack of foresight. But at the start of 1996, the WRU promised that things would be different. For the first time they appointed a coach who had come through some kind of process by coaching Wales at U19, U21 and A-team level. Kevin Bowring, it was said by the Welsh Rugby Union, would take Wales through to the 1999 World Cup. He was also the first paid, full-time Wales coach after the move to professionalism. However, given the deep-rooted problems in Welsh rugby, I didn’t think the money would save him. And I was right.