The Welsh All Blacks never lost ambition

Neath may currently be playing in the third tier of Welsh Rugby – the Championship but they have been big players on the Welsh scene for 150 years and although they have had their struggles in modern times, and were staring into the abyss at one stage, they remain in the game and ambitious.

Theirs is a tumultuous and slightly curious story and much of that was discussed this Friday just gone at a slightly Covid delayed 150th anniversary celebration at the Gnoll where a big screen was erected and their great moments replayed and living legends interviewed while all sorts of street food and beers and a fun fair helped make the occasion go with a swing.

Despite being one of Wales' pre-eminent clubs for a century or more, Neath were also often viewed as somehow being outside the mainstream.

The big four in Wales was always Llanelli, Swansea, Cardiff and Newport with the likes of Neath and Pontypool pushed to margins.

Neath for a short while in the 1920s commanded an annual game against the Barbarians but were then dropped from the fixture list while over the years, in their absolute pomp, they often failed to command game as of right against the big incoming tourists.

More often than not they had to form a combined XV with Aberavon which never quite worked for either party.

Meanwhile, to these neutral, non-Welsh eyes, their outstanding achievements and performances of the 1980s and 1990s were curiously underplayed with a rather grudging appreciation of their often astonishing performances which set new standard in fitness and playing, skilfully, at a high tempo.

Neath had to fight for every accolade and column inch yet over the decades have produced some of the best Welsh players in history especially up front. Roy John, Courtney Meredith, Adam Jones, Dai Morris and Rees Stephens would all appear prominently in any debate as to Wales alltime side while of course it was Neath who gave us Jonathan Davies.

Perhaps it started from the very off with the mystery as to why history seems to have written Neath out of the founding of the WRU which famously took place at the Castle Hotel in Neath in 1882.

Neath had been one of the leading pioneer clubs in Wales since their foundation in the

1871-72 season and were unquestionably amongst the movers and shakers behind the gathering in 1882. Yet the official minutes do not record Neath representatives as attending and Neath are not listed among the 12 original clubs.

The inspiration behind the Neath club is generally considered to be Tom Whittington who although usually listed as Scottish was actually born locally in Tonna. His family moved to Scotland where he was educated at that early rugby nursery Merchiston Castle School. From there he played for their old boys and Edinburgh and although moving back to Wales he was eventually capped by Scotland against England in 1873.

The origin of their distinctive all-black kit is also open to conjecture. It might just have the the most practical kit available and/or a colour scheme established to contrast with their great local rivals Swansea – famously the allwhites – but the generally accepted version is that they team chose to wear black to commemorate one of their start backs Dick Gordon, the Welsh quarter-mile champion – who had been killed in a game against Bridgend in 1880.

The distinctive cross on the breast of their jersey also divided opinion. It is usually described as a Maltese cross but others insist that it is more accurately described as a cross pattee which, among other things, is the basis of the Victoria Cross. With the nation awash with patriotic fervour in the 1880s and so many Welsh troops involved in the Boer Wars the latter has the whiff of authenticity.

So, Neath were a power from the dawn of Welsh rugby although to their disappointment they were denied fixtures against the 1888 Maoris, along with the 1905 All Blacks and 1906 Springboks. They did however warrant a game against the second Springboks in 1908 when they gave a decent account of themselves before losing 8-3. Handel Richards scored a long range interception try and to the fury of the home crowd the Welsh All Blacks had two late tries disallowed.

Neath were also honoured with a game against the 1919 New Zealand Army XV which was virtually the All Blacks but thereafter had to form the strange combo with Aberavon when the big touring sides arrived.

After the War, Neath grew in strength, tapping into all the rugby nurseries and occasionally attracting a few more exotic figures.

England captain Wavell Wakefield, courting a Neath girl, was known to have guested on a number of occasions during his trips to West Wales and thoroughly enjoyed the challenging physical rugby.

was the glory of winning the first modern day Welsh Cup which was reintroduced in the 1971-72 season – Neath's centenary – when they won the inaugural Schweppes Cup final 15-9 against Llanelli in Cardiff.

Llanelli were the favourites but Neath flanker Mike Thomas made himself a nuisance all afternoon and managed to neuter the star studded Scarlets back line. Jon Poole kicked three penalties and David Parker – at 5ft 2inches one of the shortest first class players in Welsh rugby history, squeezed in for a try.

The eighties were excellent years with Brian Thomas – nicknamed the Ayatollah at one stage when he grew a luxuriant beard – at the helm. Thomas had been a stand out forward in his playing days with Neath when he won 21

Welsh caps and with his considerable intellectual and management skills was always going to make a difference when he turned to coaching although his all encompassing role at the Gnoll was more akin to the modern day Director of Rugby.

Indeed many would claim he invented that position.

Under Thomas more emphasis was placed on all round attacking skills rather than domination through a muscular pack. And why wouldn't you when you had a young Jonathan Davies pulling the strings at fly-half and the likes of Elgan Rees, Alan Edmunds and the prolific Graham Davies in a back division which also picked up Cornishman Colin Laity when he left South Glamorgan Institute.

There were three unofficial Welsh club championships during this period and a 14-13 win over Llanelli in the 1989 Welsh cup in front of a capacity Cardiff Arms park Crowd. Ron Waldron was in charge by then and essentially continued the work of Thomas with, if anything, even more emphasis on supreme fitness. Throughout the 1980s Pontypool had demonstrated the virtues of such conditioning and Neath were the only side to consistently match and sometimes surpass them in that respect.

Since then, it's been a more mixed picture with the horribly artificial creation of the Ospreys professional franchise by the fusion of Swansea and Neath and the club had to accept its new status. It nearly fell apart in 2015 but they have regenerated – there is a massive rugby heart beating in the Neath area – and last season there was an excellent second place behind Bargoed to celebrate in the championship.The fight goes on.