Peter Jackson: Fifty years on, the kick that rocked the world as Newport beat the All Blacks

Dick Uzzell and his old comrades will be given the freedom of Newport next week in belated recognition of something they did half a century ago. The civic honour will be bestowed during a dinner at Rodney Parade on Wednesday week marking the 50th anniversary of the day Newport beat the All Blacks, when John Richard Uzzell ‘bunked off' from college to drop a goal out of the mud and into folklore.
Working on the principle of better-late-than-never, Newport City Council's gesture reflects an enduring sense of pride over a victory which, for whatever reason, has never been accorded the level of public acclamation of Llanelli's over an arguably inferior All Black team nine years later.
“The freedom of the city probably means I can probably drive sheep along the High Street without getting into any bother,” Uzzell said, chuckling at the thought of it. “If only I had a few sheep….”
And to think that Newport's 21-year-old student centre would never have been on the field in the first place had he not taken some unapproved leave from lectures at St Luke's College in Exeter.
“I was lucky to play against the All Blacks because about two weeks before the match I'd pulled a hamstring,” said Uzzell, now a 70-year-old retired bank executive. “My only hope was to get back to Newport and get some intensive treatment from the physio, Gerry Lewis.
“I left a message for my tutor at St Luke's saying I had to go back to Wales because my father wasn't very well. It was a half-truth rather than a lie. I did bunk off and it's a good job I did because I'd never have got fit in time if I'd stayed in college.”
Incredibly, Uzzell's drop-goal after 17 minutes proved enough for Newport to beat New Zealand 3-0. “We'd gone into the match determined to give a good account of ourselves and not let them run away with it,” he said. “I never planned to drop a goal, not least because I was never a drop-goal specialist.
“It was done on pure instinct. I saw these three All Blacks charging at me and set myself up for the shot. I never saw it go over because they flattened me but I heard the roar.
“The idea of winning the match didn't dawn on us until half-time. Our skipper, Brian Price, said: ‘Look lads, we're halfway to beating the All Blacks. We only need to keep it going for another 40 minutes and we'll be immortal.' That was when we all thought: ‘Hey, we've got half a chance.'”
Forty minutes later, Uzzell found himself catapulted from college rugby player to national hero, not just of  Wales but all over Britain. Reporting back for studies at St Luke's on the Friday morning, he hoped for the best but feared the worst.
“It's a lovely story because when I got back there was a message for me saying: ‘Would Mr Uzzell please report to the principal's office.' A lot of my friends were telling me: ‘Hey Dick, you're in trouble now.'
“I bit the bullet and knocked on the door. The first thing the principal said was: ‘Would you like a sherry?' Then he said: ‘Now, what have you been up to?  You've been beating the All Blacks, haven't you?   And I didn't even know you were playing…'”
At the dinner table on Wednesday week, they will remember every minute of it as though it happened last year. David Watkins, at 21 then serving an apprenticeship which would make him the first of the dual-code, post-war Welsh superstars, recalls the Uzzell drop in mysterious tones.
“We had an overlap if we'd moved the ball to Dennis Perrott on the wing,'” Watkins says. “Then, all of a sudden, Dick stopped. We thought: ‘What the hell is he doing?'  We all stood shaking our heads and then he dropped the goal.
“Amazing, isn't it, how people's emotions change in the blink of an eye.”
During the 50 years since, the All Blacks have lost to Welsh opponents just once, to Llanelli at Stradey Park on Halloween 1972, televised in full technicolour as opposed to the black-and-white film of the day when everything conspired to rain on the All Blacks' Rodney Parade.
It raises an intriguing question –  which was the greater victory?  While Llanelli's has been more widely celebrated, Newport have good reason for believing theirs to be the mightier achievement.
History reinforces their belief. Statistically, the fifth All Blacks had the most imposing post-war record of all, winning 34 of their 36 matches, drawing one (Scotland 0-0) and losing the other (Newport 0-3).
“More of a fuss has been made of Llanelli's win and one has to be careful what one says but the All Blacks then were not the All Blacks of '63,”  Watkins says.  “They were such an iconic side with so many great players – Colin Meads, Kel Tremain, Wilson Whineray, Waka Nathan, Brian Lochore, Don Clarke and so on.   Beating them was very, very special. On that tour, nobody else did.”
The All Black pack at Rodney Parade, October 1963:  Wilson Whineray, John Major, Ian Clarke; Colin Meads, Ron Horsley; Kel Tremain, Waka Nathan, Brian Lochore.
All Black pack at Stradey Park, October 1972:  Graham Whiting, Ron Ulrich, Keith Murdoch; Andy Haden, Peter Whiting; Alastair Scown, Ian Kirkpatrick, Alan Sutherland.
When Newport toasts its most famous team next week (Ray Cheney, Stuart Watkins, Dick Uzzell, Brian Jones, Dennis Perrott, David Watkins, Bob Prosser, Nev Johnson, Graham Bevan, Dave Jones, Brian Price, Ian Ford, Algie Thomas, Keith Poole, Glynn Davidge), they will remember the two who didn't live long enough to be given the freedom of the city.
Bevan, the hooker, died in 1995, flanker Davidge in 2006 at the age of 72. “Nobody deserved a medal for what he did that day more than Glynn Davidge,” Uzzell says.   “What he did to keep New Zealand far enough for Don Clarke not to get a penalty in range was tremendous, just tremendous.”