When he sits at home in Belfast next Friday night to watch Ireland-Wales, Mike Gibson could be forgiven for recalling a day he would rather forget. The day the visitors painted the purple patch to end all purple patches.

Of all the homage showered on the Welsh of the Seventies by those chosen to outwit them, Gibson’s verdict on their performance at Lansdowne Road 50 years ago this weekend sounds as striking now as it did then, perhaps more so given the decaying state of their Union.
The Wales of 1976 were, he proclaimed, ‘as good as the Lions of 1971’.
As one of them, nobody dared question ...