Rugby Matters: Merve didn’t swerve the SA ‘Zombies’!

JUST occasionally you get an unexpected, retrospective glimpse at some of our biggest names and greatest players from yesteryear and that happened this week when I was delving into the rugby history of Emanuel School, which appears on Page 36 of The Rugby Paper edition.

Meryn Davies was famously a teacher and coach at Emanuel between 1970 and 1972 and we, the awestruck opposition players, probably remember him almost as much as his Emanuel disciples. I remember him one chilly match day on the touchline at the Whitgift U13 Sevens, cool as hell in his brown Hush Puppies and faded brown cord jacket as he turned his back to the wind occasionally to light a crafty ciggie. I've always thought there was something very French about Mervyn Davies.

A great man in all respects but also a human being and it was fascinating to read his slightly world weary, tongue in cheek, account of the history making 1971 Lions tour which he dutifully penned for the school magazine the Portcullis that summer. I suspect it was part of a deal struck with the headmaster to get time off work to make the trip. I quote a few selected passages:

“There is little I can add to what has already been said about the 1971 Lions. You are probably as sick of reading the word ‘Lions' in the newspapers as I am of being called one. It gets beyond a joke when every other person you meet asks if you enjoyed it!

“So the 71 Lions created history. Never before had a British Rugby touring team won a Test series abroad. Success was due to any number of reasons: good management, coaching, captaincy, dedication and team spirit. I prefer to think that we had 35 players on tour who were better than the top 35 players in New Zealand.

“I also believe it is about time people stopped marvelling at the feats of the Lions and started thinking of the future. What the Lions did is now history.”

That last point seems particularly pertinent 50 years on and a massive clue to his greatness and winning psyche. Barely weeks after what many would still claim was British and Irish Rugby's finest moment, Davies has had enough of the triumphalism, celebrations. and adulation.

They were the pressures that were soon to drive Barry John into retirement at the age of 27. For Davies it was already time to park the 71 Lions tour on some dusty shelf. Move on everybody was his message, his plea almost.

Which probably goes a long way to explaining why Davies was an absolutely key man in the 1974 Lions stampede around South Africa and captained Wales to the 1976 Grand Slam. The fires raged constantly and nothing was more certain, had he not suffered his brain haemorrhage playing for Swansea later that year, than his appointment as captain of the 1977 Lions to revisit New Zealand. Later in the article Davies indulges in a little irreverent student humour in poking gentle fun at the Kiwis.

“New Zealand is a very beautiful country, with luxurious green vegetation, deep valleys, huge mountains, huge trees, and huge rugby players. In fact, rugby players and trees are synonymous in New Zealand. People refer to pine-tree Colin Meads, and bean-pole Mervyn Davies.

“Every male in New Zealand plays rugby. The only exceptions are those who are over 50 or under five. Apart from lamb, cheese, butter and rugby, New Zealand has very little to offer. As one member of the Lions party said when confronted by a typical New Zealand heavy who said: “How do you find our little old country?”

“Just get on a plane, fly to the end of the bloody world and there it is.”

“To be a rugby tourist in New Zealand is a marvellous experience. That doesn't help you, however, to be polite and look interested at about midnight when a local New Zealand heavy – henceforth referred to as a Zombie – wants to pick your brains about the present state of New Zealand rugby. Everywhere we went it was the same questions over and over again.”

Midway through the tour Davies and the Lions decided to turn the table on their constant late night inquisitors. “In one particularly dull little town, a member of the party decided to go Zombie hunting. This was a favourite entertainment of the Lions – it involved finding a would-be Zombie, pinning him against a wall and ear-bashing him about the effects of the EEC (European Economic Community) on New Zealand.

“By the end of the tour this became the No1 side-line, and, in fact, there was a weekly competition to see who could earbash the most Zombies. Bob Hiller won by a mile. “New Zealand was nevertheless a magnificent country to tour. A British Lions tour to New Zealand is perhaps the ambition of every rugby player in Britain. Those of us who were lucky enough to make it will never forget our experiences in New Zealand. Zombies and all.”

A hot reception might have awaited Merve the Swerve had he made that 1977 tour! But he would have handled it. And some.