JOHN PULLIN, who passed last week, was famously a man of few words but he was in eloquent form a few years back over beer and cheese sandwiches when I visited him at his house – virtually under the old Severn Bridge – to harvest his insightful contribution toward the England Rose book, the players’ history of England rugby.
On that famous game in Ireland in 1973 he recalled what looked like a battered old Army transport bus greeting the England team on the tarmac at Dublin airport to drive them into town. High security, very hush hush, except for the large cardboard sign on the front windo...